Why We Hunt

WHY WE HUNT: Member Christian Fichtel, North Carolina

August 25, 2017 by Ruffed Grouse Society

“To those devoid of imagination, a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.” ~ Aldo Leopold

I’ve always believed that hunting should be difficult. The act of killing, whether avian or ungulate, carries with it a weight of responsibility that should not be forgotten too quickly. In the Southern Appalachians, the mountains in which I wander, the hunting of the ruffed grouse is, at the very best of times, an exercise in patience and effort.

Each year, my home state of North Carolina collects data from participating hunters and publishes the North Carolina Avid Grouse Hunter Survey. After a peak around 1990, the likelihood of success in our southern mountains has declined in a dramatic way. The odds weren’t good 25 years ago, and even a masochist like myself would have found past numbers sufficiently challenging.

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WHY WE HUNT, Member Drew Phipps

July 21, 2017 by Ruffed Grouse Society

” . . . it is disturbing to me that there are so few grouse left in the woods here. I often wonder if I will be the last person to walk some of the coverts I hunt. I wonder how many before me have had the same thought? I take hope in the fact that there are still a few folks with dogs fighting the laurel and would like to see more of those people in the future.”

***

I was asked by a friend a few weeks ago if I enjoyed failure. This was shortly after I recounted the highlights of last year’s West Virginia grouse season. I laughed it off at the time, but it does make me wonder, after a season of several hundred miles of walking and no birds taken . . . was it worth it? My answer now and I hope always is: absolutely. The reason I hunt grouse has nothing to do with birds in hand. I hunt grouse because I’m an adrenaline junkie. I have yet to find a sensation that can match the electric moment just before a flush. The moment when dog, man and bird are all awaiting the same release.

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WHY WE HUNT, Member Morgan Wolfe

July 12, 2017 by Ruffed Grouse Society

” . . . and part of the reason I hunt is because I love the bonds that this sport creates. The bond between a man or woman and a dog, the bond between fellow hunters, and the bond between the hunter and the hunted. Being able to share a hobby and passion with the ones I love means everything to me.” RGS Member Morgan Wolfe

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I remember the first grouse flush I ever saw. It was in a New Hampshire cover we call “Spilled Milk”. The dairy farmer who owned the land passed away a long time ago, but before he did he left an old milk can down by the river. It’s on its side as if it spilled the milk, and it’s near a tremendous amount of Japanese knotweed. We find woodcock are in there, but further up where the feeder stream joins the river are some old apple trees. We always work the cover counter-clockwise beginning with the knotweed and woodcock and closing out with the apples and grouse.

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WHY WE HUNT, Member Jim Gray

July 5, 2017 by Ruffed Grouse Society

I might have arrived late to the grouse hunting scene, but I am determined to do everything I can to “pay it forward” and leave it in better shape than I found it.

Why do I hunt? I really didn’t have any choice, and I have been eternally grateful. My dad was a quail hunter. He started taking me when I was four or five years old. When I got too tired, he carried me on his shoulders. We hunted the sand hill scrub and pine/palmetto woods of Florida. I got my first shotgun, a JC Higgins .410 single shot for Christmas when I was 10. About that time, quail hunting lands began getting scarce as the hills and pine woods of Central Florida were bulldozed for orange groves. So, we shifted to dove and duck hunting.

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WHY WE HUNT, Member Don Mallicoat

June 22, 2017 by Matt Soberg

I don’t remember the first bird I shot. But I do remember when I knew I was a bird hunter. As a burr-headed boy of about 12, I was walking with Uncle Jim along a field edge in Alabama hunting rabbits behind a couple of beagles. The sudden eruption of a covey of quail not only startled my nerves, but drew something up from deep within that said, “This is who you are.” I have now been a bird hunter for 50 years.

Want to know how serious that makes me? Growing up in Alabama, a state with a three-month deer season with one-deer-a-day, I never went deer hunting. Never killed one, never had the desire. But give me a cut-corn field in September for dove, or a soybean or cornfield edge for quail, and I was in heaven. Unfortunately, my early quail hunting opportunities were limited until I got out on my own and the Army sent me to some pretty good places for quail hunting: Forts Campbell, Bragg and Benning come to mind. And of course, bird hunting means bird dogs, and they’ve been there with me through the decades. It is true: I wouldn’t do it without the dogs.

And then I was introduced to the King of Gamebirds, the lordly ruffed grouse. After leaving the Army, we moved to the mountains of western North Carolina. I went to a local sporting goods store and asked where I could go quail hunting. The guy behind the counter said, “None around here. If you’re a bird hunter you’ll have to hunt grouse.” And so it began. I don’t remember the “where” and “when” of my first grouse flush. But I do remember the look on my setter Belle’s face when it broke cover. That look of wonderment as if to say, “Hey, these birds don’t play fair. What’s this about not holding for my point?”

So here I find myself with grey in my beard and in the winter of my years, my thoughts turn to why I hunt birds. What is so captivating about that brown blur to draw me back to the forests and fields every year? For me, it is the unmeasureable. Bird hunting releases me from a life full of metrics to simply experience the moment. My everyday life is full of numbers: sales goals, profit/loss statements, survey results and counting the number of Twitter and Facebook followers. Yes, I know some folks keep a gunning log recording flushes and birds in the bag. More power to them. I’m sure for them that’s part of the hunting experience.

I don’t, simply because it is an experience I don’t want to put a number on. How do you measure the look your 12-year-old son gives you when he shoots his first quail? Tell me how I can put a number on the anticipation when the sound of a dog bell goes silent in a Wisconsin aspen thicket? Where is the spreadsheet column to record the smiling eyes of my setter when he passes in front of me on an Appalachian mountain ridge on a crisp Autumn morning? Somebody please tell me how to transfer to numbers the laughter that follows your hunting buddy muffing a straightaway on a grouse down a logging road . . . with both barrels. At the end of the day, whether there are birds to clean or not, and the flush counter on my whistle lanyard is reset, the memories will always be there. That is why I hunt.

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

WHY WE HUNT, Member Cooper Rossner

June 15, 2017 by admin

These connections I make with people, dogs, birds, my heritage and the soil along with the memories and stories I’ll tell for the rest of my life are why I hunt.

I got into this racket sort of backwards. What I mean by that is . . . I was not brought up gun in hand, nor raised in your stereotypical hunting household with time-honored generational sporting traditions. My bloodline has always had a hand in the outdoors, but was primarily concerned with fishing, and when my father had his fourth son (me), he chose to work overtime instead of go hunting. It was well-worth it though, and I am certainly not complaining. My family moved from the congested and dyspeptic, stripmalled and subdivisioned Camden County to Cape May, New Jersey about halfway through my life. This is where I fell in love with all that nature has to offer, but mostly the birds. Cape May has been described in countless ways as an aviary paradise drawing thousands upon thousands of migrating birds from shorebirds to ducks and geese, to hawks, eagles and songbirds all consequently attracting birders, artists, hunters, etc. and ultimately giving me and my shotgun a run for our money.

To answer why I hunt, though in one word, I’d say the connections. I moved down here and almost immediately connected with the birds, mostly the woodcock, and waterfowl logging countless hours of conservation work with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Ducks Unlimited and a whole slew of various agencies. In the midst of it all, I discovered wooden duck decoys and the forgotten culture that is the “traditional sporting world”. This is what I mean when I say I got into this business backwards. I fell in love with decoys, literature, paintings, stories and old guns before I even thought about hunting myself. Now, decoy-making is my primary source of income, I hang around gun shops, art shows and workshops every chance I get, and I’m chasing birds nearly every day of the season.

The fella that got me started carving decoys is also the one who got me started with DU and got me obsessed with hunting upland game birds. He eventually got tired of me hanging around, I guess, and passed me over to an older gentleman who would become my mentor in decoy carving. I consider him one of my best friends now, and we like to chase birds together every chance we get. I have made friends with some of the finest people this world has to offer due to the out of doors. The breeder of my dog and his wife, of Shore Shot Kennels, have become good friends and we enjoy getting out for a woodcock hunts each season. Friends from the waterfowling and decoy-making world have taken the step over to chase woodcock with me, some haven’t turned back. It’s a great thing to be a part of, and I don’t really know if my life would be quite as exciting without all of this. As I got into hunting, my dad got back into it seeing as he has some time for himself now. In my dad, I happened to find another best friend with whom I have the pleasure of creating and sharing countless memories made afield.

Not to undermine any other connections I had made prior to canine companionship, but I think the most formative relationship I have had in this business has been that which I found in my blossoming, solid-liver shorthair, Pilot. He’s taught me more about the world and myself than I think any of the over-priced textbooks I’m plagued with at college ever could. Bird dogs find birds for us and give us something to brag about at the watering hole, but when we look closer we see that they teach us patience, understanding, determination, motivation to go even when it’s a bitter five degrees and looking like snow, and most of all they teach us how to be and how to have a true friend. There’s a reason that the focal point of upland art, literature, film, storytelling, etc. is and ought to be that of the dog in any given scenario. Humans are abundant and crude, bird dogs, however, well they are something special. These connections I make with people, dogs, birds, my heritage and the soil along with the memories and stories I’ll tell for the rest of my life are why I hunt. I wouldn’t have my life any other way, and this is the direction I intend on heading for the foreseeable future. The dogs, the art, the history, the birds and the people that I am connected to are what have helped make me the person I am, for better or for worse . . . I’m rolling with it!

More about Cooper and his decoys and stories can be found on Instagram and Twitter: @capemaydecoys

To join RGS or for more information go to www.ruffed.org

WHY WE HUNT, Member Ron McGinty

June 9, 2017 by Matt Soberg

The first grouse I ever swung on was a right-to-left crosser at “The Wild 80”, a hunting club my wife’s late father belonged to. It was one of those clear, crisp October days we all dream about where the grouse woods abound with a palpable anticipation while being flush with color. Oh, I did swing on that grouse all right – about five feet behind him! To paraphrase what Herb Parsons, the accomplished exhibition shooter, said about shooting clays, “Ruffed grouse aren’t hard to hit, they’re just easy to miss!”

The reasons I hunt grouse are many. Prior to that fella schooling me, I had hunted squirrels, rabbits, deer and bear. From the moment that grouse left me trembling as I shook my head, I was hooked – helplessly, hopelessly smitten. The seed was planted, rapidly sprouted and grew to consume me. Now if a dog isn’t part of the mix, I really don’t care to hunt.

My precious journals go back to 1973. They show 4,160 grouse flushes and 2,976 woodcock flushes over some pretty fair dogs. My heart pounds just as loudly approaching a point now as it did on the first by Britt that first year. The extensive accounts of each hunt since then allow me to relive those memories – as they will for my son and his son and . . .

Here are some of the reasons I grouse hunt:

– Dogs. To bring a puppy laden with promise into your life, train that pup to be a bird dog and then foster an unshakable bond that defines teamwork – and love. There’s nothing quite like watching a dog you trained learn to handle wily grouse. Points reign supreme. To see your dog quiver with excitement while nailing a grouse is only exceeded by your own exhilaration and is the stuff of dreams.

– To witness Ruff point his last grouse that I fortunately connected on. Then, stumble bringing that bird, struggle to get up with wings beating him in the face and proudly deliver it to hand. He didn’t want to release it – I think he knew. He was buried with the wings from that bird.

– Watching Feathers display an unmatched resolve after having a leg amputated for cancer at 11 years of age. Being in awe of her 1,000th point – on only three legs – with tears streaming down my face. She taught us lessons about grit, devotion and determination we’ll never forget.

– To be there when your son (or daughter) harvest their first grouse. Save that hull and other memorable ones that follow in a GBE inspired “BOX OF SHELLS”. Memories.

– Woodcock. I would be remiss without including woodcock. Grouse and woodcock go together like . . . well . . . grouse and woodcock! God, I love the Little Russet Fellow. As GBE inscribed in my copy of A DOG, A GUN, and TIME ENOUGH, “We speak of woodcock with a softer voice.”

– As a long TIME Michigan Hunter Safety Instructor being able to introduce scores of young people to grouse hunting and the all important elements of gun safety.

– Grouse Camps. Preferably on a lake where you saunter to the shore with a steaming cup of coffee to warm your hands on a frosty morning with mist rising from the placid water as the sun enhances the fleeting colors that line the shore. The robin’s egg blue sky soothes your soul. You long for a way to blend and capture the enticing aroma of the coffee with the distinct scents of the fall grouse woods. Your senses are nearly overloaded. You savor it knowing as Octobers before it, it won’t last – it will vanish on the ephemeral, gossamer wings of TIME.

– Campfires. Finding a suitable clearing for night viewing in the most remote, secret locations in the Upper Peninsula. Carefully removing sod to form a circle, placing it to the side and outlining its circumference with rocks. Later replacing the sod and hiding the rocks for another hunt so your fire pit won’t be trashed.

– Sitting close to a fire on a chilly night after a day of hunting with your dog curled up beside you. Before she settles in, she places her lovely head on your knee for a pat, then looks longingly up with eyes that say, “Thanks, pa”. She twitches in a sound sleep as she dreams of the birds she encountered. A deep inner peace envelops you as you run your fingers through her corn silk soft ears. You are grateful – even proud – of the way you worked together. The misses no longer seem as important.

– Enjoying the fire with someone special on a night so clear the stars seem close enough to touch. The smoke from pungent oak curls and furls upward in tight columns before disappearing in the darkness. The glowing coals consume your thoughts as you listen to every sound and every silence of the night.

– How good a fluffy pillow feels as you drift off to sleep from a good tired while your only thoughts are where you’ll hunt the next day.

– Having “Johnny” tell me he got his first grouse, then seeing him lower his head after I asked, “Your grouse was flying, wasn’t it?” Three weeks later watching him burst into class one morning with a huge smile and him excitedly proclaiming, “Mr. McGinty, Mr. McGinty, I got another grouse yesterday and this one was flying!” “Attaboy, Johnny!” Followed by a big hug!

– To have a library of the upland classics by authors like Evans, Spiller, Hill, Foster, Ford, Smith, Norris, Valdene, Bump and Sheldon that serve to sustain one during the off season.

– An odyssey that afforded our family the opportunity to share a splendid evening with George and Kay Evans. I’m also so grateful to have spent an afternoon woodcock banding with Andy Ammann. All icons I greatly looked up to and admired.

Yup, there’s a lot to like about grouse hunting. While it’s not surprising, I was taken to the grouse woods, I could have never imagined I would be so taken by the grouse woods. The journey has been meaningful and enriched my life beyond measure. I sincerely hope your’s will be as well. Please go make some memories this fall, Birddoggers . . .

To join the Ruffed Grouse Society or for more information, go to www.ruffed.org

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.

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

Why We Hunt

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