Feathers in February

Judd, the Author and Lynden: tired, but happy

February can be a challenging month, especially living in northern Michigan. Snow and low temperatures tend to make outdoors activities besides ice fishing and snow sports improbable, if not impossible. But a road trip may completely change the landscape...literary!

On Sunday, 17th, we start early in the morning with my truck navigation systems strongly disagreeing from my sense of direction. The only positive thing is that in the first hour of the trip, between Mesick and Cadillac, we saw a beautiful male coyote in full winter fur almost at  the side of the road. A beautiful view of an accomplished predator!

I will not bother you with details, but at one point I also turned my phone navigation app on, and since it took us to our destination well ahead of the truck system we decide to follow that one. I kept both systems on just to follow the disagreements. What a fight! (Anything for entertainment on a ten hours plus trip.)

Eventually we arrived at Upland Addiction (www.kentuckywingshooting.com) fine lodge, in Marion, western Kentucky, late in the afternoon. Dinner was MacDonald's since restaurants in the Bible Belt don't open on Sundays, as explained by Judd, young entrepreneur and our guide for the next two days.

Before I forget I should mention that Lynden and I bought this hunting trip on the Traverse City Ruffed Grouse Society banquet last September, and we scheduled it around a trade show that we had to attend in Indianapolis. The good news was that the logistics were perfect, the not so good ones was that we might have run away from snow to drenched in rain: Kentucky was having some of the worst floods in the past decade!

But the forecast for Monday was dry, overcast and cool with several days of rain to follow, so Judd asked if we would mind cramming two hunts in one day. Better that then spending an afternoon reading and no more birds the next day. In the end, Tuesday morning was fair weather and we packed more bird hunting there.

What I have to tell you is that Judd knows his business. Due to the flooding we concentrate our hunting to his family farm, moving from different meadows that we divided by wooded hedges and always ended in water, at least during the floods. Judd ran three different pointing dogs for the three half-day hunts. 

First was the thirteen years old setter Bonnie, and she was a class act. I wish to have the drive she has when I am that age (in dog years!) What a sweet old lady! After Bonnie we had Queen, a strong willed German shorthair, as if any other shorthairs were not. Queen ranged a bit farther than Bonnie, and behaved differently, but produced just as well. On the Tuesday hunt we had old Jack, and English Pointer. Bigger ranging, working the wind, and suddenly freezing, holding birds for as long as we would take to be there, or maybe until hell freezes over. Jack reminds me why English Pointers are in the world: to hunt birds, period!

Besides each of the pointers Judd ran little Lady. An English Spaniel with a heart and desire to hunt bigger than her tiny body; she was the flusher and a fantastic retriever. When she didn't make to a bird before the long legged pointers, she would gently snatch the birds from the larger dogs' mouth! In the water she might believe that she was a Chesapeake Bay retriever. Once Judd could give her the bearings, she was out in the water and never failed to bring a bird back.

It is very hard to describe all the action that comes from a single quail cove rising, with birds buzzing front, right, left or towards you, let alone tell the limitless rises that we had. Let's just say that it started well, as in the first cove a dropped one bird from with the bottom barrel of my Beretta 28 gauge shotgun, and immediately after that another bird fell to the top barrel.

At the end of the third hunt we had a number of birds that was almost obscene, except for the fact that quail tastes so good!

With heavy legs and light hearts we bid farewell to Judd and his father with hopes of coming back next season We drove then to Indianapolis for a trade show and on the Friday I continued to Portage, Michigan, in order to make peace with my grandson. From the lodge I had called Sylas and told him that I was "bird hunting" and his only reply was "But without me!"

In order to remediate the diplomatic incident I called Rolling Hills Hunting Preserve in Marcellus, Michigan, about a half an hour from my daughters home, and scheduled a pheasant hunt for Saturday afternoon. Around 11:30 AM our friends Mike and Jordan met Sylas and I at my daughter's home and we departed to Rolling Hills.

When we got to the club house we were asked if we would be three hunters, and Sylas immediately corrected Bob saying that we were FOUR HUNTERS!

Let's just say that we had a well timed hunt: Mike shot the first bird, Jordan the second and then it was Sylas and my turn. We kept rotating the points and I backed up a couple flushes, but not many. At one point the birds became heavy and we went back to the truck to drop them and take a rest. Sylas wanted to warn up as well. Of we went again and we shot the last bird just before the rain started. It would turn into drenching rain by midnight and a full day high wind storm.

The pheasant became a good stroganoff served with white rice and helped down by a couple good bottles of Italian wine. And diplomatic relations were fully restored!

The Gang: Jordan, Mike, the proud grandfather and Sylas

Pheasant Tales or Pheasant Tails

Tales or Tails

 

Several years ago I bought "Pheasant Tales," an anthology about what probably is our most cherished immigrant, edited by Doug Truax and Art Delaurier, Jr. and elegantly illustrated by Eldridge Hardie, at Fieldsport (www.fieldsportltd.com), the definitively elegant wingshooter purveyor here in Traverse City.

 

Don't ask me why, but I had many false starts at the book and it sit on my bed stand collecting dust, for the horror of my wife, night after long and lonesome (for the book) night, but a week or so ago I decided to put an attend to the book anguish and give it the attention it deserves.

 

I really can't tell you why reading, or at least start reading, this fantastic book was such an odyssey. I love pheasant and pheasant hunting, although I must confess that I am hunting them less than I would like, maybe it is due to the soft flight of the woodcock and fantastically elegant flavor of the ruffled grouse, or maybe work and life gets in the way of pheasant. Go figure!

 

Anyhow, the herculean work has been completed and I had derived a lot of pleasure from it, had a lot of laughs and may have shed a tear or two. And now that I am done, I may even think about one more pheasant hunt before the virtual  (preserve) season is still going.

Feathers That I Have Ruffled

A unique achievement

It is winter right now, temperatures are frigid and snow is coming down burying all cover, bird season – the wild kind – is over for all practical purpose, and to cope with that I mind travel to times and places where I had the opportunity to ruffle some feathers and these are the top birds and places that I visit while daydreaming.

I cannot say that I am an accomplished shooter since I never experienced the gentlemen’s circuit of grouse in Scotland or driven pheasant in England or red-legged partridge in Spain, and considering the cost associated with driven game it is unlikely that I ever will. But although not an accomplished shooter, I am an enthusiastic bird hunter and have done my fair share, again probably much less than many, of rough shooting after great, and many times not so great, bird dogs. And although I will not be talking much about dogs today I am the first to recognize that the heart and hopes of passionate bird hunters ride on the nose a bird dog.

It is just fair that the first bird that I revisit should be the South American perdiz or codorna. Some of my earliest memories send me back to some pasture or stubble field in northern São Paulo state in Brazil following my father’s footsteps and occasionally being censored by Diana, the English pointer, by making too much noise while she held one or more perdiz under her nose. After the shot and while Diana retrieved I would collect the fired 28 gauge waxed paper hulls and bring it to my nose with its inebriant fragrance.

 

Sugar cane, soybeans and other changes in agricultural practices along with “liberal laws” that outlawed hunting decimated the perdiz population where I grew up, but I would finally reconnect with them in Uruguay where I have been going to Uruguay since 2008. In Uruguay I hunted in all kinds of weather, from a balmy windless day where a T-shirt is more than adequate to gale force winds that provide a good excuse for missing easy shots (the shot pattern was disrupted by the wind), to deep killing frosts and a day after a veritable deluge that sent some of the local rivers up over twelve feet and left the fields half submerged for several days.

 

The perdiz and the grassland of South America are made for pointers, English, shorthaired, setters or my personal favorites Épagneul Bretons. Early in the season you will find mostly singles, but birds start to form couples there are the opportunity for memorable doublés. As the right barrel folds the first bird there is a smooth swing towards the second, and this one also crumbles under the left barrel before the first perdiz touches the ground.

 

Next in line is probably the most beautiful of all upland birds in what is for me probably the most emotionally charged place in the world. The first time I went pheasant hunting in North Dakota I was taken by surprise by the landscape, at the same rough and delicate, settled by somewhat unconquered. The vision of my first tumbleweed drove me back to my childhood as I watched cowboy movies with my grandfather. And I was absolutely unprepared for the savageness of the pheasants. They may or may not be related to preserve birds, but their soul is wild and free, and their flashy colors and tormenting cackle mock the naïve hunter.

 

Tupã, my black lab, flushed and retrieved the first wild pheasants that I shot. We were exploring PLOTS and this one was removed from the road, maybe an acre of unkept prairie grasses and vines crawling upon the once upon a time fence that surrounded a decaying homestead. I could only but imagine which dreams could have led people to the desolated and unwelcoming Dakotas and what they may have endured. But eventually perseverance failed their bloodline and the homestead was abandoned, left for their ghosts and pheasants. A hen flushed under Tupã’s nose, I called him back and he continued to push the brushy fence line and at the very end, from under a thorny apple tree came the thundering cock, and down he came like a rock. The second bird came out of the other end of the fence with nothing but the cold blue sky to disguise him and I botched it. I shot his landing gear out and he flew a good quarter of mile before collapsing.

 

Then one morning we stopped our trucks near a marsh, maybe to eat a snack, maybe to find out where we were (not lost, of course. We knew we were in North Dakota!), and at the slamming of a door pheasants started flushing in droves, blackening the sky. They did not flush at once, but in groups, large and small, almost as if flushing and cackling of a group would energize the others. We watched all that mesmerized, guns cased as we did not have permission to invade pheasant heaven.

 

A rather short time ago I experienced the most frantic bird hunting so far. I took a break from a week of bow hunting in the Limpopo and spent a day shooting. Waterfowl in the early morning, then decoyed pigeons and doves, followed by upland birds with point dogs after lunch and again waterfowl in the evening. Well, I thought I had seen everything and was I wrong!

 

We had four dogs and six guns on the field and we just could not circle the guinea fowl in any way, shape or form. No matter what we tried they would run and flush out of range, so we did the unthinkable. We run, and run, until we barely got into shotgun range when the huge polka-dotted birds would take to wing. This may not be the most orthodox way to hunt birds, but it worked.

 

The thorns took their share of the action. My chaps took a beating, my shell bag was almost ripped apart, I was bleeding from both arms and just this weekend I noticed that the shirt I was using that day is well ventilated in the chest. I hate exercise, but I will sign up for another guinea fowl hunt anytime. I just need a ticket to fly 8,571 miles!

 

And from all those faraway places we end up back at home, hunting the forests of northeastern lower Michigan during the greatest month of the year, October for two birds that are so different and that cannot be hunted apart – Ruffed Grouse, the darling of my palate, and the darling of my heart, Woodcock.

 

After I moved to Traverse City it is almost impossible for me to go anywhere else during October. The days may be balmy or may be frosty, sunny or rainy, still or blowing, still fall is in the air, the grouse are doing what they do, making us believe that they only exist in our imagination and then exploding from under our very feet or from a branch where they should never be allowed to be, and the woodcock, local or migrating, fill our days with joy zigging when they should be zagging or the other way around.

 

No matter what year it is, it appears that grouse are always at the bottom of their cycle, and every bird is a true trophy, at the field and at the table. Last fall was even worth as there was little or no fruit to gather the birds, but I can replay the shots of each of the three birds I shot.

 

Oh, but talk about a fall of woodcock! The lite, delicate and brave birds abounded. For me nothing compares to hunt woodcocks where the trees give way to the ferns, and when the ferns are just starting to die and the trees are bursting with colors.

 

I will never forget a woodcock that I never shot but that almost impaled me after it flushed coming within inches of my face before it veered away. And I will never forget the true double that I shot on 9^th October. The right barrel of my old Laurona hit the first bird going straight away and then I swung on the second bird that took to my right and dropped it with the left barrel. And yes, I had witnesses: Mr. Bill Berghuis and Mr. Del Whitman, Jr. Now, whether or not you consider them reliable, that is your call.

Death by Perdiz

Dead Tired

Last Saturday I returned home from a great week of perdiz (Nothura maculosa) hunting with JP Cacerias in Trinidad, province of Flores, Uruguay. As always João Paulo da Costa and his beautiful family welcomed us in a delightful way and we felt truly at home at El Solar del Cazador.


This was a week to renew and strength some friendships, create others, exchange experiences, stories and lies, commune around good food, common memories, a glass of local red wine or just the right amount of a long traveled Macallan.

In his fantastically provincial speech my friend Eloir superbly describes some highlights of our latest hunt in his own blog “Contos de Caçada”, and I talked briefly about it on the previous post “An Exercise in Self Control”, but I do feel that there is more to talk about.

The first great surprise is that I finally found a great airport restaurant! At Montevideo’s Carrasco International Airport surprised us with a refined black olive and honey tapenade, a delicious Bife Ancho (Rib Eye) accompanied by a refined chimichurri and papas al libro, an oven roasted potato that is thinly sliced, but not all way through, so it reminds a book. The desert, a crêpe with local dulce de leche was also freshly prepared. A bottle of Don Pascual merlot highlighted the excellent and reasonably priced meal.

The second surprise that I also already talked about was the increase in the number of perdigões or martinetas (Rhyncofus rufensis). By the end of the week I would have had the opportunity to shoot at ten of the Queen of Upland Birds, but of course no shots were taken, and we can only hope that in the near future we shall be allowed to hunt these great game birds.

There is also a substantial increase in the local duck population which had been seriously impacted by years of draught, and it is recovering to levels that may justify the re-opening of duck season in the region.

Although not a surprise, the bad news is that, like in other parts of the world, changing in agricultural practices are the real danger for sustainable perdiz populations. Perdiz needs native grasslands, and although it can adapt certain other covers and agricultural crops like millet, sorghum, corn and wheat, its two worth enemies are encroaching the Uruguayan landscape in a seemingly unstoppable way, soybeans and eucalyptus.

Soybeans and eucalyptus create green deserts that bisect the pampas. The chemicals required by soybeans kills not only weeds and insects, but also the perdiz and other wildlife, and nothing in South America eats eucalyptus, except fire ants.

On the positive side, João Paulo tells us that the recent rains that made our walking the Uruguayan fields so much more difficult will also boost the coming perdiz hatch, and we should expect a very health population next season.

Talking about rain and difficult walking I really missed my Muck boots in this hunt, by my chaps saved the days. And walking was the price to pay for every bird we collected. It may not be the mile a flush for ruffed grouse during the bottom of the cycle, but it was close. And a lot of the places we found birds this year was on e edge of water, with the perdiz only moving to drier higher fields during the warm hours of the day.

At the end of a long day at Durazno, which included a parrilada with more than one bottle of Don Pascual, I was so tired as to almost consider death by perdiz!

After this great week in a distant and pleasant country I brought home memories and sore feet, and an ardent desire to do it again.

Blue Racer

Del and a looong Blue Racer

During the last weekend of woodcock season Del and I went out to bid goodbye for the nice little up side down brain birds until next year, and maybe, just maybe, invite a couple of them for supper. Well, it happened that all representatives of Scolopax minor had already packed and headed south, but eventually we met some of them during a pheasant hunt a week later, but good bye was all you could wish them at the time.

Anyhow, we walked some nice but demanding hilly terrain and Gina pointed several time, but we had no flushes. The soul of a bird hunter rides the nose of a bird dog, and at every point our hearts bit faster, adrenaline flushed, and upon walking the fruitless point disappointment settled in place of the earlier excitement and hope. But such is the life of all bird hunters.

On the way back to the car Gina pointed again, in a very intense way. We followed her beeping colar and as in the earlier points no birds flushed, but there was something else there.

Gina was pointing a curled long snake bluish in color and quite lazzy due to the cool, but not yet cold, temperature. I grew up in Brazil where snakes are not only bad, but really dangerous, but i really contained myself and did not shoot it on first sight, specially because Gina was way too close.

Del recognized the snake as a Blue Racer (Coluber constrictor foxi), a nonvenomous snake that is endemic to North America. As you can see by the photo above Del's snake was about four feet long, and it was unusually docile, maybe because of the rather cool weather. Anyhow, I think it did not enjoy being handled that much as it soon released a very foul smell that encouraged Del to return it to the Michigan fall woods.

When we came back to Del's home and told the story about the snake to his wife Chris, she asked me if about my experience with snakes in Brazil. I told her that the only nonvenomous snakes that I had experience with would happily eat your (see "Monster Still Exist" from January, 2012), so I really did not care to being to friendly to any snakes, blue or other color.

I hope that the endangered Blue Racer found a nice nest to hibernate during the long cold winter that already set over the land and that when it wakes up in the spring it will feast on rodents and leave upland bird chicks, specially woodcock and grouse, alone.

Wild Behaviors

My son Daniel and me

Yesterday we left Traverse City in the early morning and drove a couple hours to Morley, MI, to hunt pheasants at Haymarsh Hunt Club (www.haymarsh.com). Before anyone asks, there is fantastic hunting all around Traverse City, but woodcock season is already finished for the year and grouse are at the bottom of their cycle, and probably the main reason was that we were taking my son, Daniel, on his first hunt over dogs, and common sense told us it would probably be easier and more gratifying for him to hunt pheasants in more open cover than breaking bush all day long in the hope of a couple flushes from almost invisible birds.

My friend Randy Halseth arrived on Friday afternoon and we had dinner before Daniel arrived past 11:00 PM. We started the Saturday (yesterday) morning driving to Meijer's so Daniel could buy a Resident Small Game hunting license, and then we drove south on Garfield Road to meet the other members of the expedition, Del Whitman with German Shorthairs Zap and Gina, David Reed with Vizsla Oliver and Gus Newbury with English Setter Pepper.

We arrived at Haymarsh around 10:00 AM, were guided to our fields and even before parking saw three roosters walking across the road. We backed up, parked, got dressed, released the dogs and went after the colorful roosters.

As we started down the road a rooster flushed wildly and Del got it with a crossing shot while the dogs pointed another one. Every body motioned Daniel forward as it was his first pheasant hunt. Daniel walked behind the dogs and when the gaudy pheasant flew his gun did not fire and I took it with the right barrel from my BSS 20 gauge.

It was a great start, but anyone that taught that we would have an easy hunt was deeply wrong. The cover was dense and in a lot of places it looked a lot more like grouse and woodcock coverts than pheasant country. We went south against the wind to give an edge to the dogs and crossed some wet ground from where besides bagging some more pheasants we flushed several whitetail deers.

After a couple hours we came back to the vehicles for refreshments, both for dogs and hunters, drop a heavy load of birds, rest some tired legs, lie about great shots and the normal things we all do when hunting with friends.

We went back to the north field and very soon we had a double point along the tree line and within seconds of each other two hens flushed, David got one and Daniel and Gus hit the other. Along that edge, all the way to the end of the field the dogs pointed and we eventually flushed several woodcock. Too bad the season was already closed or we could have supplemented our bag with several gorgeous timber doodle.

At the end of the north field Pepper, Gina and Zap came to a beautiful point, and as Del, Randy, Gus and Daniel approached a large dark feathered rooster flushed into the trees. Gus hit the bird twice, but it continued to fly and Del dropped it with a shot from his twenty-eight in a relative open spot. We all marked the spot, but three dogs and five men were unable to locate it. After almost a quarter hour we gave up, all of us with broken hearts.

We started again walking the big field with the wind on our faces and flushed several other woodcocks. At one point Pepper and Gina got very birdie near a ditch and after relocating several times a hen flushed very near me and I got it with a single shot.

We were all getting tired, especially the dogs that were running a hundred yards for every couple yards we walked, but before we got to the cars the dogs took us again to the heavy cover in the south field, and again after relocating multiple times Pepper, Gina and Zap cornered a rooster that took off wildly. I hit it with my first barrel and missed with the second and saw where the bird landed. Soon after Del was there with Gina, Zap and me, and after a couple minutes the rooster flushed a second time and came down hard after I fired the right barrel.

We got back to the cars around 2:00 PM and counted fourteen birds, equally divided between roosters and hens. After the photo session and splitting the birds Del was the first to leave as it was his birthday and he had to take his wife for dinner.

We stopped at the Moe-Z-Inn tavern for something to eat, and after the two hour drive we all, minus Del, arrived at my home in the Old Mission Peninsula for an improvised wild game dinner. The Big Green Egg was going in no time and I quickly had some venison kaftas (venison, garlic, onion and pistachios) and black bear back straps going while I cleaned some spruce and ruffed grouses that I brought from Canada. I seasoned the grouse with garlic, kosher salt and olive oil, and while we waited for the meat to be ready my wife served some mashed potatoes and beef pie.

To help the meal we had a bottle each of Stags Leap Cabernet, Dona Paula Malbec and Renwood Zinfandel, and to close the night just the right amount of Sandeman's Founders Reserve Porto.

Overnight I smoked a large piece of bear and Randy, my wife and me had some of it for breakfast this morning. It is wonderful the magic that salt crust and hardwood smoke can perform on a good piece of wild game.

Even if Daniel was absolutely safe during the day and got his first pheasant I guess that he was not prepared for the hunt. He went to bed at 8:30 PM last night and only woke-up around 11:00 today!

A Nice Fall Morning

Zap & Gina with woodcock

It is no secret to anyone that knows me that I endure most of the year to really live and enjoy fall, as fall means hunting season is open, and that translates into spending time outdoors with friends.

I was able to take sometime out this morning to go bird hunting with friends Del and Dan. We met at Del's around 9:00 AM, which is one of the beautiful things about "upland bird hunting" as we don't need to wake up well before the stars dim out as we need to do when deer and duck hunting.

We enjoyed some small talk while getting ready and loading Del's German short-hair pointers, Zap and Gina, in his Honda Element, which is really a nice little hunting car, and then drove in a generally Southwest direction to get to the same plot of state land where Del and I hunted almost a year ago.

When we got there we parked where we intended to end the hunt and walked the dogs on leash to the covert a half a mile or so to the beginning of the covert where we released the eager Zap and Gina, loaded our guns and started walking through the ferns, already burned, but bravely resisting the passing of the season.

The first part of our walk was quiet, for the lack of a more sedated word, but just so suddenly Zap and Gina started to go on point, sometimes at the same time but a hundred yards apart. Over the next two hours or so we may have had twenty or twenty five woodcock flushes, and maybe we got legitimate shots at half of them.

Dal was shooting  a very nice Benelli Ultralight 28 gauge semi-automatic shotgun that he own at the Ruffed Grouse Society banquet last month, while Dan was using a side-by-side 20 gauge SKB and I had my Browning BSS, also a twenty. Del had one misfire and another time he forgot to chamber a shell, and even if I say so, I enjoyed an inspired day, and got my share of the action and of woodcock.

By the end of our morning stroll when it was already quite warm, if not hot, we had bagged six birds, while we could not find two other. We also had a single wild flush from a grouse, but neither Del, Dan or I could even had a good look at it.

We finished our morning with excellent burgers at Jodi's Tangled Antler, a great hunter friendly and antler decorated northern Michigan bar. After that, back to work...

Maturity?

The grey ghost comes into the light

In my opinion the kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) is the greatest of Africa's "plains game" trophies, and after reading Ernest Hemingway's "Green Hills of Africa" and Robert Ruark's "The Horn of the Hunter" the desire to hunt kudu took me to Africa on my first safari in 2005.

I got a beautiful Southern Cape Kudu during that safari, and I vividly remember each moment of that trip, especially when my kudu materialized from the bush into the lens of my scope.

Last year I had the opportunity to once again hunt in Africa, even if it was for a very brief  weekend. My friend Fanie Venter made arrangements to have me invited to hunt at Falmouth, a private bow hunting preserve in the Limpopo. The goal was to hunt an impala or warthog, and I already told you that story before (see "The Best Blind I Ever Hunted From").

While hunting at Falmouth I saw a great amount and variety of game, which just served to remind me why Africa is the most desired hunting destination in the world, and early in the afternoon I noticed that a large shadow fluctuated inside a mopane bush, a short distance from the property's only water hole.

I focused at that shadow and tried to be even quieter than I had been before, and then, suddenly, the shadow came out in the clear and became a marvelous kudu bull. What a magnificent site!

The kudu is a very shy animal, and he stood still a long time, not trusting the apparent peace of the water hole. After what could have been an eternity he started to approach, danced around and before he started drinking he lowered and raised his head three times, always ready to bolt away in case of any danger.

When he finally relaxed, if kudus ever do that, and started drinking the tepid water he presented a perfect broadside shot, and I had a knocked arrow at a range of eighteen yards!

I just had to draw my bow and release the arrow. But I did not do that.

Although fully grow in body size, this kudu was not yet a mature trophy. Its horns did not have that last curve that make them "point forward", and the ivory tip was just beginning to show in one side.

I admired that wonderful animal for a long time and never even raised my bow. I had no desire to just kill such a gorgeous animal before he could become an unforgettable trophy that would forever live in the hunter's memory.

Yes, I will hunt kudu again. I will pursue them with all my energy and soul, but I have no intention of pulling the trigger unless I have earned that right. Have I matured as a hunter?

Woodcock

A new experience in Northern Michigan

This weekend my wife and I came to Traverse City, Northern Michigan Lower Peninsula, to enjoy the fall colors, relax and pick-up two shotguns that Del Whitman (www.dcwhitmangunsmithing.com) was working on for me.

Although the weather was less than great (and that is being positive), we had fantastical views during the almost three-hour drive, with all tones of auburn, yellow, copper, orange and red blasting out of the landscape, with patches of ever greens trespassing here and there.

My wife and I first came to Traverse City during the US Labor Day weekend (first Monday of September) and we fell in love with the place. We needed vacations and wanted to spend a lot of time together doing “nothing at all”, but I used the opportunity to meet Del, who was recommended by my friend Tony South, and drop the two shotguns that needed work.

One of the shotguns is a little Beretta 28 gauge side-by-side box lock that my mother bought in 1969 to my dad as a wedding gift. The well balanced gun was probably made in the late 1950’s, and although mechanically solid, the old lady needed some “make-up”.

While discussing the project with Del – lengthening the chambers to 2 ¾” (70 mm), rebluing the barrels and all furniture, refinishing and re-checkering the stock and fore end – we talked a bit or a lot about bird hunting, especially grouse and woodcock, and we made plans to hunt together sometime in October, when I could be back “up North”.

Yesterday morning I met Del at his place and I was nothing but delighted with his work. The little Beretta was gorgeous, the bluing perfect and the checkering sharp. The overall fit and finish just perfect. But guns were born to be used, and even if this is the most valuable gun that I own I could not deny its destiny.

While I put on my boots and brush pants, Del loaded his German short-hair, Gina and Zap, in his car, and we took off towards some of the fantastic public hunting land that is so overwhelmingly present in Michigan, especially its Northern portions.

Gina went on point very close to car and Del directed me to flush the woodcock that was holding under an evergreen pine, and as it flushed I killed, or at least severely injured, a tree! I just can figure how that branch moved in to cover the woodcock flight path.

We continued to brave the woods, and that was a challenge for me, as I am used to hunt open uplands, especially the Uruguayan pampas, and I missed a couple more flushes and then Del got a bird with a beautiful shot from his Browning over-under 28 gauge.

And then Gina went on point again and as we walked in a woodcock flushed and he fell to left barrel of my little Beretta. What a beautiful bird is the Scolopax minor. Although smaller than the Beccaccia (Scolopax rusticola) – la regina del bosco – I held in my hand in Italy, it had the same inebriating perfume. It was also very similar to the South American Narceja (Gallinago paraguaiae) that I once hunted in Uruguay, although it inhabits much open grounds than its Northern hemisphere relatives.

We continued hunting and Del bagged two more woodcock, one over Gina and the other over Zap.

A memorable, if bitter-sweet, moment happened when Gina flushed a Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) and Del had the rare and perfect crossing shot, only to face a misfire due to a bad shell. It was the first time I heard their peculiar drumming, and that created another pleasant memory.

Despite my poor shooting I hope to be able to hunt the Michigan Northern woods again, and I hope that Del, and especially Gina and Zap, won’t mind if I come back.

And today I hope that Zezé will let me taste at least one of wines from Old Mission Peninsula.