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...