The Good Place
There is a place. Sometimes, when I’m driving or daydreaming or thinking about places to visit again, this place pops into my head. It’s in the mountains, about 7500’ elevation. It’s a mix of Aspen and conifers and sage and grass. The Aspen hide springs, water for the cows, deer, elk, and, best of all, Dusky Grouse. The grass is knee high in places, other places the grass is barely ankle high. Always the conifers are close by. There is not too much sage at this place. Other nice places have the sage flats border the conifers with a creek in the area. It seems water, grass or sage, and conifers are all required. In this place, the Aspens hide the water, giving protection from the hawks and avian predators.
From the truck, parked along a road, there is no mercy for the hunter, as the trail immediately starts angling up. Before long, after two or three rest/breathing stops, the view behind is spectacular with sharp mountains, alpine meadows, accented by the ever-present sound of flowing water. Ahead, the course is up, and more up.
This place is where, at different times, three of my dogs pointed and retrieved their first Dusky Grouse. I can’t remember ever putting out at this spot and not coming back with at least two birds in the bag. One year, I had three in the bag, and I had to climb out of a bottom back up to the road and my truck. Dusky Grouse are a substantial bird, about the size of a Mallard duck. That was a lot of bird in the bird bag. It was a slow climb out, especially when I could clearly see the end, 500 feet farther up the mountain. It was a lesson I learned well that day. In the mountains, for me, I will try to take on the hard part first, and I won’t give up one foot in elevation if I don’t need to.
My mind drifts back to my last hunt there with my pup, JD, a 1 1/2-year-old female Brit. Up and up we climbed as JD ran ahead and down and back up the ridgeline we were hiking. Along the top of the ridge the angle lowered a bit, as JD ran ahead into the conifers and back out into the meadow. I wasn’t expecting birds at this point. Usually, I would reach the apex of the ridge and start back down into some Aspen groves where the birds would be eating and watering. My other dogs, Blue and Shack, both had tremendous success in the Aspen groves. Most times we would encounter family groups of 6-10 birds. Today, JD and I reached the top and I stopped to look down on the Aspen thickets along the edge of the mountain, interspersed with conifer forest. I could go downhill and walk through three or four thickets on the way down to the bowl. The same one I climbed out of a few years prior. But I wanted to go farther along the ridge to where it drops into a big Aspen thicket. I turned to continue along the now-level ridge when my GPS beeped. JD was pointed at the edge of the conifers 100 yards dead ahead. I couldn’t see her, but I knew she was steady, since the GPS updated every 2.5 seconds. Finally, I saw her through the trees, staunch and looking into the trees. Just then, four birds flushed off the ground away from me and disappeared. Two more flushed out of a tree above the ground birds and headed right to me. I think they were focused on the pointed Brit, since they came right over my head. A tough shot for me normally, but that day I made it look easy.
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| JD, Ducky Grouse, 28 ga. |
I trained her to retrieve the summer prior, and she loved it. She hit that bird and flipped over the top of it. She is not a big dog, and I wondered if she would carry the big grouse. That was a non-issue, and she put the bird in my hand. We had a lovefest right there on the mountain. Then we dropped off to the Aspen groves below. The young girl bumped a bird in the tall grass around the Aspen and stopped to watch it fly off. Then, she was staunch on another bird in the tall grass on the other side of the Aspen. The bird flushed and I got lucky to hit it just before it rounded a big Fir tree. JD made another solid retrieve, and I loaded that bird up as I stopped to assess my location. I was halfway down to the bottom of the bowl with two Dusky Grouse in my bird bag. We discussed it and decided this would be a good time to turn back to the truck. It was a hard sell to the little Brit, but I convinced her we were just hunting in a different direction. She bought it.
By the time we reached the truck, I was tired of lugging the big birds. JD was not tired at all and ready for another trek up the mountain. This place yielded birds once again. It’s a special place. There are other places in the area, some not far away. But this is what flashes in my brain throughout the hot summer. Aspen, conifer, grass, sage, roaring creeks, and Dusky Grouse.
