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Healthy Forests, Abundant Wildlife, Conservation Ethic

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Why We Hunt

WHY WE HUNT: Member Christian Fichtel, North Carolina

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

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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.

[Read more…] about WHY WE HUNT: Member Christian Fichtel, North Carolina

WHY WE HUNT, Member Morgan Wolfe

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” . . . 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.

[Read more…] about WHY WE HUNT, Member Morgan Wolfe

WHY WE HUNT, Member Don Mallicoat

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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.

[Read more…] about WHY WE HUNT, Member Don Mallicoat

WHY WE HUNT, Member Stephen Faust

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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.

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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.

[Read more…] about WHY WE HUNT, Member Stephen Faust

Why We Hunt, with Member Douglas B. Egenolf

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Be careful . . . ruffed grouse will burn a passion into your hunting heart from which you can’t break free.

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Give me just a touch of cooler air and for some reason, I have to start roaming. If the calendar is on the right month, that means the ruffed grouse season is in full swing. I am going to spend my free time experiencing a dense woods devour me, bones and all. I could spend some time waiting in a treestand for a whitetailed deer to come by but, I must admit, I still get fidgety. That sitting in one spot doesn’t give me any relief from that feeling that I have to roam. As I study my simple reaction to cooler weather, some will call it many things. I no longer think of it as being a passed-down tradition, being taught by someone, etc., etc. It is in my blood, and this feeling comes over me much the same as breathing; so simple and natural.

[Read more…] about Why We Hunt, with Member Douglas B. Egenolf

Why We Hunt, with Member A.J. DeRosa

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We are living in a golden age of the grouse woods. I no longer see the ruffed grouse of the past, but a culture of today – young and old, dedicated and committed to their calling and never so focused on saving the species.

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I grew up in a long line of casual “partridge” hunters that never really considered the use of a dog. Grouse hunting was something you did when you scouted for whitetails. Swap the slug barrel off the old Remington 870 pump for a bird barrel, and those New Hampshire “chickens” were prime dinner. The older I became, the less ruffed grouse existed on the southern border of New Hampshire, and as my years went on as a suburban bowhunter, the ruffed grouse became a distant memory.

[Read more…] about Why We Hunt, with Member A.J. DeRosa

Why We Hunt, with Member Tom Keer

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Our hats look like oil pans, our favorite vests have more patches and thread than original cloth, and while we may be late to supper, we are never late for opening day. Anything done in moderation shows a lack of interest, and we are among the obsessed. Go hard or go home.

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I don’t think we grouse and woodcock hunters are very smart.  At least I know I’m not. For what kind of hunter volunteers to get shredded by cover only to get a glimmer of a snap shot at cagey birds that dart behind aspen swales and pine boughs? And what kind of hunter shrugs off a bark dusting so easily that it’s considered normal? We do it again and again so much so that we are reminded of Albert Einstein’s ‘Definition of Insanity’: “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Even though I know your answer, it’s not right for me to answer for you. But for me? By Einstein’s definition, I am insane.

[Read more…] about Why We Hunt, with Member Tom Keer

Why We Hunt, with Member Britney Starr

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A single moment. One split second, combined with millions of sights, sounds, smells and thoughts that make a lifetime of memories.

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A running Ruff, finally pinned by a relentless shorthair. Anticipation. Holding your breath as the world switches to slow motion. The flush. The smell of gunpowder. Feathers and a leaf floating to the ground, backlit by the sun. Proud smiles.

[Read more…] about Why We Hunt, with Member Britney Starr

Why We Hunt, with Member Landon Knittweis

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Grousing soon became my religion, one that challenged me to view the world through a lens of ethics, stewardship and conservation, community and wild untrammeled beauty that is the sport.

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On the morning of Sunday March 6, 2016 my roommate and I found ourselves driving towards Winslow Maine. A drab, brown coat of mud, salt and sand paints the roadside snowbanks of the old farm roads. Spring is so close we can taste it, each night I walk the blueberry fields along the ocean at my home in Cutler eagerly looking to see if my woodcock have returned. I’m in the final full semester of my college career, and the world as far as I can see it is my oyster. Friends, colleagues and family had all begun to ask, “What are your plans after school?” I would answer them all with the same patented response I’d been giving since I was seven years old, “I don’t know what my life plan is, but I’m getting a bird dog.”

[Read more…] about Why We Hunt, with Member Landon Knittweis

Why We Hunt, with Member Dave Veldman

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To this day, some of my best memories in the upland woods come from hunting with those there for nothing more than the fun and camaraderie that came with a fall day in the grouse woods. 

As I am now peering on the dawn of my 20th season in the grouse woods, I have a great deal on which to look back and be thankful.  I didn’t grow up in a hunting family.  I did have the fortune of being raised with trips to the family farm which fostered my appreciation for the great outdoors.  Once I was old enough to take the hunters safety course, I took it upon myself to find friends and others to enable my time in the woods.  Heck, I didn’t see my first grouse till I was 15 years old, and even then, I wasn’t entirely sure at what I had shot.  I was out alone squirrel hunting, and when the bird flushed, I instinctively mounted my Mossberg 500 20-gauge pump and pulled the trigger.  The bird hadn’t flown too far, and somehow I connected.  I had seen pictures, but at the time, it was just one more animal to fill the day’s bag.  I had no real appreciation for the what, when and where finesse of chasing ol’ ruff.

All Rights Reserved Copyright David Veldman 2015
All Rights Reserved Copyright David Veldman 2015
[Read more…] about Why We Hunt, with Member Dave Veldman