The School of Grouse Hunting

It’s no surprise that in my early twenties I thought I had it all figured out.  I knew, among other things, that I would never become a hunter—a fisherman, yes, but not a hunter.  Mine was a liberal academic household; both parents were urbanites from the Midwest, and no one owned a shotgun.  Hunting was just something that I didn’t do, and, having grown up on the creeks of Tidewater Virginia, I didn’t even know what a grouse was.  But then Bradley tucked his peculiar calling card—a grouse feather—under the rubber of my windshield wiper.    

I first disregarded it as an eccentricity, but Bradley’s contagious enthusiasm about grouse hunting would have made anyone raise an eyebrow.  In his wallet, right next to the pictures of his two beautiful daughters, was a snapshot of To, his Brittany spaniel (as in “to the point”), her head resting on a tree stump surrounded by grouse feathers.  “Isn’t she just beautiful,” he said.  And then, eagerly, “Only one hundred and twelve days before grouse season.”  It didn’t take me long to catch his bug.

Bradley first retrieved a bird book from a shelf above his gun case and told me about “the grouse”—its diet, its habitat, its predators.  He showed me the prints scattered around his home, the framed and unframed tails, the pictures of him and To.  In all photos he wore the contented smile of a successful hunter, and all hunts were successful, even if, for some reason, they did not end up with a grouse in hand. 

Lesson two was skeet shooting.  I bought my first gun, a Browning BPS, and had it not been for Bradley’s unwavering encouragement, I might have returned it the following day—I was certainly no natural, and I think I only connected with two targets in forty-five minutes.  He wisely refrained from divulging so early that grouse are harder to hit than clay skeet flying straight in an open field. 

Finally, on an uncharacteristically cold October morning, we pointed Bradley’s truck towards the mountains, arriving at the National Forest accompanied by the sunrise.  We didn’t dally before charging into the sprawling landscape of, well, regular Virginia woods—loblolly pines, oaks and beech trees, dotted on the edges by overgrown laurel bushes, garnished every few hundred feet by a holly.  It looked almost like my backyard.  It was not the gold-tinted, bejeweled wonderland I had somehow imagined would harbor “the grouse,” that elusive bird I was pretty sure I had never seen in real life.  Nevertheless, I took comfort that the light was, at least, still emboldened by a golden hue, and more importantly, that Bradley had promised there would be grouse.

The old growth quickly gave way to patches of briars, devil’s walking sticks, and other uninviting jumbles near a small creek.  It was there I first saw one, barely two hundred yards from the truck.  I had been matching Bradley’s gait on the opposite bank of the creek, uncertain about what to do, where to hold my gun, how to be prepared.  Then the feathered explosion burst from behind a rotting log ten feet to my left.  I watched it fly away, not even thinking to shoot it.

“Hey,” I exclaimed, “That was a grouse!”

“Yep.”  Bradley must have wondered why I just watched it disappear into the canopy, but he didn’t say anything else except, “It’s a beautiful bird, isn’t it?” 

The next time, I did get my gun up, and I had every intention of shooting.  We were on the same side of the creek now, on a narrow path that led through what appeared to be an abandoned homestead site; some trees from an old orchard were entangled in a sagging, stone wall.  I was investigating a well that could have ruined some unsuspecting hunter’s day, when a bird flew right in front of me and—though I didn’t know the phrase at the time—showed me everything.  Again I watched it fly straight down the hollow, too slow to pull the trigger.

“I probably should have shot at that bird.”

“Probably.”

“But that was a hard shot.  It was so quick.”  Bradley didn’t respond, for we were off again after To, winding down an even narrower corridor that cut through laurel six feet high.  A few minutes later, I heard the brush burst again. Bradley was leaning forward and shot once to my right.

“Dead bird!” he yelled.  I didn’t even see the bird until To appeared with it in her mouth.  I began to realize that I had just passed up a relatively easy shot, and the realization was daunting—not to mention that I never could have shot the bird he shot: I hadn’t even seen it.  He showed me how to check the crop, and we found that the bird had been eating grapes.  Later in the day, we found more birds in the grapes, and then I actually got one of my own—sort of. 

In addition to safety and the shooting and hunting parts, I soon understood that I had to learn a myriad of other, less clearly defined rules—when to walk to the point, how (or whether) to reprimand someone else’s dog, how to talk to other hunters and on and on.  But my first lesson in etiquette was when I got my first grouse. 

We probably had less than a half hour left when we found an acre of recent cutover, nicely adorned by an abundance of grape vines.  Before To even arrived, I saw the eyes of one, and then another grouse, and then another, perched in and below one tree that looked like a smorgasbord for grouse.  I called to Bradley, and at my shout they flushed deeper into the woods.  Again, I didn’t get around to shooting, but Bradley fired and winged one of them.  We went in pursuit.

After we pushed through a particularly thick area (I had to crawl underneath one section), I saw the bird on the ground about thirty yards away.  When it saw me, it fumbled to get in the air and flew away clumsily, confirming that it had been injured.  I shot it.

After victoriously shaking my fist and breathing hard from the excitement, I suddenly realized that I might have just broken some rule I didn’t know. 

“Was I supposed to shoot that?”  Was I supposed to shoot a bird that was actually his bird?  Was it his bird?  And since it was wounded and wouldn’t have gone far, should I have let the dog follow it up and point it?  Bradley told me later he would have let To point it, but he was so excited I had my first grouse that he just congratulated me.  Even in my exhilaration, I thought to return to the berm from where I had shot, and beneath a swath of pine needles I retrieved the shotgun shell as a memento.

It was a better first hunt than I could have reasonably expected, but apart from one other decent shot that year—on a bird that flushed wild and flew straight away like one of those lazy clay targets—it turned out that the first day could be classified as beginner’s luck.  During the rest of that first season and throughout the second, I missed a plethora of shots, many hard but some easy.  I was beginning to feel as if I were cursed, for time and again I missed opportunities for the ultimate success: the pointed bird. 

It hadn’t taken me long to understand that To was an invaluable component of the hunt, and not just because she has a nose that far surpasses those of her gun-carrying companions.  It’s because for a grouse hunter, one of the few events that outstrips the beautiful mayhem of a multi-bird rise is that moment when dog, bird and hunter unite in what seems to be orchestrated perfection.  And for some reason I just couldn’t achieve that ideal state—I fumbled, I choked, or worse, I forgot to release my safety.

But my excitement never diminished when we were hunting and To’s collar went to hawk scream.  For me, the realization that she is pointing is similar to (but better than) the fisherman’s sensation when the bobber dunks beneath the water.  It is like the uncontainable, uncontrollable tingling of a child waiting on Christmas morning—but the difference, and the beauty of walking towards the point, is that the tingling is both contained and controlled.

And then I broke the curse on the last day of my second season.  It wasn’t snowing and hadn’t for a couple of weeks, but except for scattered sections on the southeastern slopes of the mountain, a couple of feet still covered the ground.  The absence of footprints in the white before us confirmed once again that this was the right place to come for our last hunt of the year.

We had a few wild flushes in the first couple of hours, but there wasn’t much action in general.  Then we exited a tangle of ice damaged trees and vines and entered bigger woods with little cover, but To was still in front, still moving as if she were following a scent.  

“She looks birdy,” said Bradley.  I nodded, and then I noticed To lock her feet and point into a small pile of brush between us.  The pitch of her collar turned to hawk scream. 

“Bradley,” I said, “She’s pointing.” 

“Which way?”

“East,” I responded, feeling the beating in my chest and the onset of that welcome tingling.

“Go to her,” he said.

All of a sudden, the big woods didn’t seem so big.  A bunch of small trees separated me from my goal.  I could either turn my back on the point and walk up to the ridge, which was markedly clearer, or I could try to weave through the saplings and hope the bird didn’t flush when my gun was down.  I chose the latter and proceeded with caution, numb, now, to the stings of branches and the clumps of snow brushing onto me.

I reached her, and still, no bird.  But still, she was locked down as if frozen.  Just then the pressure became too much, and the grouse flushed.  But there was confusion, for in its haste, the bird pinballed around the tangle that had been its refuge.  Finally it found an opening and darted before me into an alley of trees.  It was one of those smart birds, diving side to side like a tornado in a dogfight.  But my gun was up as if it were an extension of my arm.  I shot, and I saw the bird tumble to a patch of icy snow. 

But it wasn’t over: the bird began to slide down the incline, and I suddenly had the irrational fear that I would lose my first pointed bird, or that I had just scared it, that it would get up and fly away and I would end the season empty again.  Then To poked through the brush with the bird in her mouth.  I  could hardly believe it.  It had all been so quick. 

So I could find the birds and shoot them.  But could I be counted among the elite ranks of “grouse hunters”?  The final test came when a stranger approached me that afternoon: “Where’d you kill that grouse?”  We were feeding To in the parking lot of a convenience store, and maybe my wide eyes still resembled those of a novice, but I wasn’t going to be tricked that easily.  I reached into the dog box and pulled out the decent-sized cockbird, rolling him over in my hand, considering how I would cook him.  I looked back to our visitor.  “In the woods,” I said, trying my best not to break a smile.  Bradley laughed much of the way home.  I had graduated.  

So now I’m a few years wiser and, once again, I think I have it all figured out.  I have my own  Brittany spaniel—Sophie—who is not yet tried but by all indications true, and I’m ready to go grouse-hunting.  Still, I know that surprises await me yet … maybe a double this fall?  Only one hundred and three days to go.