Archives for May 2017

WHY WE HUNT, Member Payton Gunby

May 31, 2017 by Matt Soberg

I grouse hunt because it’s in my DNA. Surprisingly, it doesn’t have to be passed down through genetics. Take a stroll through the grouse woods and you might find it quickly imprinted in yours.

The story of grouse hunting for me starts somewhere in the Deep South . . . in a part of Georgia, oddly enough, where there are no grouse. I’m still a third generation bird hunter – Every winter from December to the middle of January, we hunt the bird every grouse hunter knows: woodcock.

At a young age I was always with the bird dogs in the kennels until I was old enough to go and watch, then shoot. Prior to grouse hunting, I had hunted quail, chukar, pheasant and woodcock. Most of my hunting was with my dad, so grouse was the only bird he had hunted that I hadn’t. He made his first trip to grouse country a couple years before I did. The bird dogs are my world, and when I found another game bird to hunt, I wanted to burst with excitement.

We first ventured to the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Northwest Wisconsin. The 20-hour trek, multiple fuel stops and dog walks soon became well worth it with the beauty of the trees changing colors so much sooner than our still snake-ridden October in Georgia. We made it to our cabin as the sun was setting, so we settled in and took care of the dogs.

The next morning in our “middle of nowhere grouse camp”, my excitement to hunt this new terrain and bird they called the “King” made my full stomach the most distant thought in my mind. I was chomping at the bit to watch my dogs hunt this beautiful land, so we headed to our first stop.

There we parked, got the dogs suited up, put on our vests, prepared our guns and shells and then started. We sent the dog off and 100 yards away he goes on point. There were four of us, so we got into a line and boom, the biggest woodcock I’ve seen flushes in front of the other hunters! It was that moment I knew I was in prime wild bird country.

Fifty yards later another point was stuck, two woodcock up, two down. All three of the other hunters had a bird within 10 minutes and about 200 yards from the truck to boot! In shock of how quickly things were going, we carried on and wouldn’t you know, 100 yards away my most faithful setter goes on point again. As I approached, I was nervous because our GPS was malfunctioning, and we couldn’t find the dog! Coincidentally, I was in the right spot as we searched and I bagged a huge woodcock.

I couldn’t have asked for a better start, at this point I was ready to see a grouse. Finally, we get to an area that looked like true grouse habitat, and we flushed two out of the trees. I saw what looked to me like a brown fighter jet weaving through the spruce trees.

We stayed for a week and I was getting to see some more grouse action and my dad and his friends were harvesting birds. I had made a couple attempts shooting at grouse but I couldn’t connect. I was learning so much about the bird and its habitat, plus I was getting to harvest woodcock. I was discouraged as our final day in the northwoods dawned, and my dream of harvesting a grouse hadn’t been fulfilled. I felt so blessed to had fallen in love with the land and to experience something new with my dogs, but it put a lot of pressure on me to make my last morning count.

Thirty minutes into our final hunt, it finally happened. All the hours driving, campfire stories and time I’ve spent caring for my dogs was instantaneously worth it. I’ll always have that grouse burned into my brain . . . the angle it flew . . . the dog I hunted over . . . and my excitement as I yelled to tell my dad. Our last hunt that evening lasted a few hours and we were on our way back to the truck for the final time, but within 200 yards, I bagged another grouse! I was so proud.

There is truly no other bird similar to a grouse when hunting with dogs. I fell in love with the land, the bird, the people, everything about grouse hunting. My yearly trips are my most cherished hunt. I grouse hunt because it’s in my DNA. Surprisingly, it doesn’t have to be passed down through genetics. Take a stroll through the grouse woods and you might find it quickly imprinted in yours. ~ Payton Gunby, RGS Member from Georgia

To join or for more info, go to www.ruffed.org

WHY WE HUNT, Member Stephen Faust

May 24, 2017 by admin

Our sport will die out if we’re not bringing in new hunters. In the sales world, we say if you’re not growing you’re dying. In the hunting world, the same may be true.

I was about 8 years old when I rounded the corner of a bean field in Hyde County, North Carolina, and it was there I saw what would guide me through the rest of my life. That was 40 years ago, and I can still see the combination of five English setters and pointers locked up on the edge of that field. Walking in on that first point was a blur of wings, sights, sounds and pure exhilaration. I am sure I shot in self-defense, and I don’t remember the first quail I bagged, nor the first woodcock or grouse. But I have points and birds from 40 years of upland hunting scattered throughout my memory. I cannot remember what I went to the grocery store for on a normal day, but I can see a woodcock I bagged over an old setter when I was about 12, just like it was yesterday. From the UP of Michigan to Louisiana, the “Little Russet Feller” has haunted me ever since. When my son bagged his first using the same gun on which I learned, he jumped up and down with excitement. He was hooked, and I was delighted.

I would not hunt without a dog because seeing a dog point still makes my heart race with excitement, but why I hunt has changed over the years. The desire to bag a bird at first was replaced with the joy of seeing a young pup point its first bird. Then it was watching the young dog learn the games and become a master. Painfully witnessing the old dog become frail, and then watching his last point. Knowing his lifetime has run full circle, even as mine has not changed much in the dozen or so years. Lastly, as my son grew and started shooting, watching him learn to handle the dogs has been the gravy on top. I hunt to pass along our tradition. As a guide, I have taken many folks out to bag their first grouse or woodcock. Seeing the smile on their faces is heart-warming. Not everyone had the chance to have a dog-man as a dad, but I did. Dad taught me well, just the way he learned, the way I brought up my son, and now my new step-children. But also, the way I take new comers on hunts and point out the little things, all which keep them coming back for more.

As a Centurion Member of both RGS and AWS, my aim is to bring as many new people into our sport as possible – not to crowd out my favorite spot, nor your hidden alder run, but to make sure there is a big enough presence in grouse and woodcock hunting so that my children can all take their kids and show them how to cast a young dog into a likely looking spot – then be happy when they see that dog hunt the right spots all on his own. Mentoring is near and dear to me, as it should be to all of us. Our sport will die out if we are not bringing in new hunters. In the sales world, we say if you’re not growing you’re dying. In the hunting world, the same may be true.

To join RGS and AWS or for more information, go to www.ruffedgrousesociety.org.

New Hunters Gain Momentum in Pennsylvania

May 18, 2017 by Matt Soberg

By Richard Elliott II
Treasurer/Retention & Recruitment Coordinator Allegheny RGS Chapter
Assistant Huntsman Coordinater UBH RGS Chapter
Brockport, Pennsylvania

When I first saw the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society New Hunter Mentor Hunt Program (NHMP), I said to myself, “Finally a non-age discriminating program!” I eagerly researched the program learning the requirements and setting standards for considering a participant as a new upland bird hunter. Our current participants range in age from 12 to 61, both male and female. I quickly requested a workbook from RGS and AWS Director of Member Relations and Outreach Mark Fouts so I could then coordinate and locate volunteers to help us make the program successful for the Allegheny RGS Chapter. Program content and supplies offered have been a great basis to get us started administrating the first Allegheny RGS Chapter NHMP in the PA Wilds Region.

I choose to break up the program by starting with a spring gun safety awareness and shooting event in late April. This is allowing our new hunters to go through a gun fitting/patterning process early enough to spend the summer practicing shooting skeet or other shot gunning games. We choose the first weekend in August to have a habitat awareness, field skills and mapping event day in the morning before our Chapter fun luncheon banquet. I believe habitat identification is probably easiest at this time of year in the PA Wilds Region. We already do a fun bird dog challenge in September so pairing the bird dog safety awareness and demonstrations with this day is looking like a sure win. We will be holding our first NHMP Upland Bird Hunter Program Hunt in the PA Wilds Region in October.

I’m very grateful for and to the RGS and AWS staff and to the many other people making this program a possibility. I believe this is a program every chapter can use to benefit the next generation of upland hunters. You can stretch it out like our chapter or condense it down to just a day or two. Many of our mentors are as excited as the new hunters. I believe for myself and fellow upland hunting enthusiasts that it is very rewarding to share our beloved upland bird hunting experiences with new hunters who have a desire to become a part of what we love.

For more information about the RGS & AWS New Hunter Mentor Program, go to www.ruffedgrousesociety.org.

WHY WE HUNT, Member Noah Smith

May 17, 2017 by admin

The sun was making its way across a high top in the Nantahala Mountains, and the first rays of light hit the frozen windshield of my truck. The thoughts of previous hunts high in the Carolina hills fought for a piece of time in my memories. The memories make grouse hunting so unique . . . no two are ever the same. Every dog has its own slot, every bird too, and the covers, well they reside down the deepest passage in the rooms of the brain, only visible to me and those in which I choose to share them.

I started grouse hunting the first semester of my freshman year at Western Carolina University, and all my friends would tell you I would have been better off on drugs. On more than one occasion I would leave my dorm room around the same time my friends would be coming in from a night out on the town. I would walk nearly a mile to freshman parking, drive to a friend’s house where I stored my side-by-side scattergun and meet up with one of my mentors somewhere in the national forest for a hunt. That first grouse flush over a setter’s point, miles back in the land of the noon-day sun hooked me for life.

It wasn’t long before a dog consumed my thoughts, a setter of course, and a road trip to New York State from my Carolina home to pick up my male Llewellin, “Jeb”, only added fuel to the grouse hunting fire that burned in my mind. This past season was our first together, and I would not trade the memories for anything. It amazes me that most days in my busy life I cannot remember what I had for lunch, but I can travel in my mind to Jeb’s first grouse point, the way the wind was blowing, where I was standing, the staunch concentration on his face, how long he held and the direction that old mountain bird flushed out from under the grape vine from where it was feeding and effortlessly disappeared into the mountains that hide its legacy.

At the end of the day all grouse hunters hunt for different reasons. Some repetition is found in explanations of why we hunt when asked. Some say it’s for the dogs, some for the exercise, but for me, it is the creation of memories. I know as the years pass and my season’s change that no matter what happens, I’ll be able to visit my covers even if I can no longer traverse these Southern Highlands where I’m rooted. I’ll be able to travel in my mind to that first point with Jeb or our first bird. I will never be storyless when in company because I have the memories locked in for good. Joy, solace, exhaustion, love, accomplishment and many other emotions can be summoned at any time because of these memories.

My Name is Noah Smith, and I am a proud member of the Ruffed Grouse Society. I cherish the memories I have made and look forward to making many more. We all hunt for different reasons, and I encourage you to take someone new and help them find theirs.

Noah Smith is an RGS member from North Carolina who will be a new intern handling communications and social media for the RGS through the summer. Welcome Noah!

For more information about how the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society enhance habitat and hunting, go to: www.ruffedgrousesociety.org

President’s Message – Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

May 9, 2017 by Matt Soberg

Is the glass half full, or is it half empty? That is the classic question people ask to decide if someone is an optimist or a pessimist. When considering the mission of the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society regarding healthy forests, abundant wildlife and our sporting traditions, what are you . . . an optimist or pessimist?

The pessimist could argue that we have plenty to worry about. Today, there are grouse hunters in Tennessee who know when they have moved off the Cherokee National Forest and onto private property, not by crossing a fence or spotting a posted sign, but by taking note of how much better the land is managed on privately held woodlands. Too many of our nation’s federal forests are being neglected, are getting older and gradually being overtaken by climax species that crowd out, or shade out, the pioneer species preferred by ruffed grouse, American woodcock and other wildlife. The devastating wildfires and tragic loss of life in the Southeast last November is the direct result of neglect and mismanagement of forests and woodlands – an area of the country that formerly supported abundant ruffed grouse and woodcock populations and provided many days of hunting enjoyment for local hunters and those who traveled to the Southern Appalachians specifically to hunt ruffed grouse and woodcock.

It took decades of inaction by the United States Forest Service to place ruffed grouse, American woodcock and other wildlife of young forests in their current precarious positions on many of our national forests. RGS will closely monitor on-the-ground actions and regularly interact with the Forest Service at local and national levels to ensure that the conservation imperatives outlined in our legal challenge are consistently and effectively addressed by the Agency.

Each national forest operates under a forest plan that is developed with substantial public involvement. These forest plans are, in essence, contracts with the public. Unfortunately, over the past several decades, individual national forests throughout the Eastern United States have met, on average, only 24 percent of forest plan minimum acreage goals for these important young forest habitats. Not surprisingly, wildlife dependent upon young forest habitats are experiencing substantial population declines on many of our national forests. Clearly, the Forest Service has broken its contract with the public.

The optimist’s view would include words like “opportunity” and “potential”. Check out the videos of the 2016 Grouse Camp Tour on www.grousecamp.org to see first-hand some of the optimism we found. Last year’s Grouse Camp Tour celebrated habitat, membership and the grouse and woodcock hunting experience by making stops throughout the Southern Appalachian Region that spans across several states. We saw and heard the absolute determination that so many of our members have in restoring healthy forest habitat and returning grouse and woodcock populations to historical levels. That determination is founded on an optimism that recognizes the potential for those forests to provide recreational enjoyment for far more citizens than is the case today. We cannot and will not allow the Forest Service continue their failure to provide the young forest habitats required by the ruffed grouse, American woodcock, golden-winged warbler and other game and nongame wildlife on national forests throughout the Eastern United States.

The Forest Service and RGS met in November 2015 to find a path forward to resolve the issue raised in the Petition for Rulemaking and to secure the future for wildlife of young forests on our national forests. To its credit, the Forest Service acknowledged that the picture painted by the data provided by RGS is indeed accurate. On our part, RGS recognized that the Forest Service faces multiple challenges that affect what the Agency can and can’t accomplish on a daily basis. However, RGS reiterated that despite these challenges, the Forest Service has the personnel and financial resources to pay far more attention to the habitat needs of young forest wildlife species.

The Forest Service and RGS met again in March 2016 at the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference to discuss steps that the Agency had taken to address the compelling need for additional emphasis on the conservation of wildlife of young forests since our Petition was filed. The Forest Service identified several recently proposed habitat management projects on national forests in the Eastern United States that, if fully implemented, will help move the ball forward. In addition, the Forest Service set aside a big chunk of time during its regularly scheduled meeting at the Conference with wildlife conservation organizations from across the nation to specifically address the status and trends of wildlife of young forests. If was gratifying to note that these organizations were unanimous in their support for additional attention to the needs of these critters.

We will again meet with the Forest Service this spring in Washington, DC. RGS has been patient and appreciative of what appear to be sincere efforts on the part of the Forest Service to substantively address the compelling needs of wildlife of young forests – after all, the Agency is a bit like a super tanker – it can’t be turned on a dime. However, this patience is limited, and we will need to see consistent progress in turning the ship around.

One measure of progress will be the goal for young forest habitats set by the Nantahala/Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina when it completes its ongoing forest plan revision. The public, including many RGS members, spoke loud and clear at the numerous public forums sponsored to identify issues of concern. A primary issue, if not THE primary issue raised by the public, was the need to dramatically increase sustainable timber harvests to dramatically increase the availability of these habitats on the Forest. RGS hopes that the Nantahala/Pisgah is indeed listening to the public and will act accordingly.

At the end of the day, RGS is optimistic and sincerely desires to work collaboratively with the Forest Service – and we sense that this desire is mutual. However, should the need arise, RGS will take whatever steps necessary to compel the Agency to meet its legal and principled obligations.

For more information about how RGS and AWS preserve sporting traditions by creating healthy forests, go to www.ruffedgrousesociety.org.

Archives for May 2017

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