Hunting grouse when I was young was my escape. No matter my troubles, and they sometimes seemed many, I could make them go away for a day.
I would rise at four and jump into my boots, orange shirt, khakis and briar chaps and load my dogs in the trunk of my Dodge Demon and drive west to Augusta, Highland or Bath County, turn out a setter dog at the head of a holler and walk up it. The dog would need no commands, I needed only follow, listen to the bell and for the silence when it pointed, then walk carefully til I saw it standing, prepare for the rise. If lucky I would see it, but as often as not only hear it. One chance in three I would get a shot, half that often a bird might fall. When it did my day would be a success. A two-bird harvest day was a triumph.
As darkness neared I would have walked up many hollers, on a good day seen a dozen flushes, heard a half dozen more. If I had one bird in my vest I was happy, two overjoyed, three (seldom) ecstatic. I would arrive home late and very tired, dream of rises before points all night, wake after each but immediately fall asleep again.
Usually I would have with me a fellow hunter, sometimes not. No matter, I loved it, even when, not infrequently, I harvested no grouse. Such was the joy of grouse hunting in my youth with my dogs, hunted for grouse one at a time in rotation.
A few times a season I would go for several days and stay in a friend’s cabin or a motel with a few fellow grouse hunters, who hunted in ones or twos. While I hunted quail more frequently, it never took the place of grouse hunting for me. I count grouse hunting a joy of my life.
When I turned fifty I commenced an annual grouse hunt in Minnesota with my sons Scott and David and our dogs at Steve Grossman’s lodge. We had many wonderful trips there, and learned much of grouse and woodcock and hunting them. Precious memories accumulated.