Upland Autumn

by William G. Tapply

  “Two grouse, huh?” said Josh. “Cool.”

  “At least two,” I said. “It’s way cool.”

  “I’ve never shot a grouse,” he said.

  “Hustle down to that corner,” I said, “and be ready.”

  “Or a woodcock, either,” he said. “Actually, I’ve never even shot at one.”

  “Today’s your day.”

  I waited for Josh to get into shooting position down by the brook, though I figured it was futile. Burt was sitting beside me coiled like a steel spring, and I knew when I said, “Okay,” he’d bolt. He always did in the day’s first cover. He’d ram full speed into the thick stuff, and if there were birds, he’d either be out of sight when he pointed them, or he’d bust ’em wild and bark at them.

  Unlike Kenny and me, who lived off our memories, Burt was fueled entirely by anticipation. He loved to hunt—hell, he lived to hunt—and I liked the fact that a middle-aged dog, unlike most of the middle-aged men I knew, could still be so charged up. I didn’t really mind that he rammed around like a crazy person in our first cover, though if he happened to bump a grouse and give chase, I’d certainly yell at him, just to remind him of what was expected of him.

  The thick stuff that bordered the brook featured head-high alders, muddy bottoms, field edges, blowdowns and briars, young birch and poplar, some old apple trees, and a scattering of hemlock, juniper, and thornapple. Mixed cover, and birdy as hell.

  Part of me was thinking: I hope there are no birds there. I don’t want Josh to see Burt screw it up. Another part of me retorted: Don’t be a fool. It’s always better to find birds in good-looking cover than not find them.

  Burt sat there, quivering, whining, and rolling his eyes.

  Josh, on the edge of the brook, appeared to be quivering, too. “So what do we do?” he said. “I’ve never done this before.”

  “You keep the brook in sight on your right,” I said. “I’ll be off to your left, and if he does it correctly, Burt will work the cover between us. Stay even with me. If you see a grouse, shoot it.”

  “How’ll I know where you are?” he said. “It looks awful thick in there.”

  “You’ll hear me. I’ll be the one yelling at the dog. Ready?”

  Josh grinned. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

  I tapped the top of Burt’s head. “Okay,” I whispered.

  Zoom. Burt tore headlong into the brush, and in about a minute his bell was a distant tinkle that I could barely hear over the gurgle of the brook.

  I yelled at him, of course; to no avail, of course.

  Then I couldn’t hear his bell at all. When that happens, it normally means he’s on point, except in the day’s first cover it probably means he’s just galloped out of hearing range.

  I yelled some more, then stopped to listen. No bell.

  “Be ready,” I called to Josh. “He might be pointing.”

  A minute later I heard Burt yipping way off in the distance. Okay. He had been pointing. Then he either busted the bird, or it flushed. Either way, he was chasing it. Marvelous.

  As I stood there, I realized that Burt’s yipping was getting louder. “Get ready,” I called to Josh.

  The grouse came on silent wings, skimming the tops of the alders, heading right for me. He passed over my head so close I could see his beady little eyes.

  I turned and took him going away.

  “Get him?” called Josh.

  “Yep,” I said, casual-like, as if I fully expected to hit any grouse I shot at.

  About then Burt came crashing through the underbrush. When he saw me, he skidded to a stop and looked at me, and if dogs could talk, he would’ve been saying, “Oh, hello, there. Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Dead bird,” I told him. “No thanks to you. Go fetch.” I pointed at where I’d marked down the grouse.

  Burt was back a minute later with the bird in his mouth.

  I took it from him. “Thank you,” I said. “It works better if you hunt closer to me, you know?”

  He nodded, then went over to the brook, lay down in it, and started drinking.

  Ten minutes later Burt locked on point near a tangle of blowdowns on the edge of an old clearcut. “We got a point,” I called to Josh. “Hustle on over here.”

  I went up behind Burt. “Easy,” I said. “Steady, now.”

  Burt rolled his eyes back at me.

  Josh appeared. “Oh, wow,” he said. “Look at that.”

  I gestured at an opening in the trees. “The bird’ll fly that way. Swing around over there.”

  When I saw that Josh was in position, I eased around Burt, paused, then took two more steps.

  The grouse burst out from under my feet and headed Josh’s way. He raised his gun, pivoted, swung, hesitated ... and then the bird was gone.

  At that moment another grouse flushed and cut to the left. I dropped it with a longish crossing shot.

  I kicked at the blowdown a couple times, but no more grouse came out.

  By now Burt was retrieving my bird. He brought it to me, and I cradled it in my hand. Two shots, two grouse. This was unusual for me.

  Josh came over. He was grinning. “Man, that was pretty. Like a painting or something, seeing Burt pointing, and those birds come crashing out, and you shooting it, and the dog fetching it. Awesome!”

  I smiled and nodded. It was rather awesome.

  It would have been more awesome, though, if Josh had dropped his bird. He wouldn’t get an easier chance all weekend, and he didn’t even get off a shot.

  I was thinking: This kid wasn’t embarrassed, frustrated, angry, or apologetic at failing to pull the trigger on an easy going-away shot at a grouse. He didn’t even curse or make excuses. It was kind of weird. Kenny or Ike—well, me too—would’ve been screaming.

  But it also occurred to me that we’d had at least one solid point, probably two, moved three grouse, taken two shots, and dropped two birds, all in about 20 minutes. A lot of seasons, that would constitute a decent full day of hunting. I wondered what Josh was thinking.

  A little farther along the brook, three more grouse rumbled out unseen from a screen of hemlocks, and a few seconds later four shots echoed from the other side of the brook, and a minute after that, Kenny and Ike yelled, almost in unison, “Damn it! How in the hell?”

  We kept going. Burt bumped a couple of singles, one of which flew past Josh, who said he never saw it. I shot a woodcock that Burt pointed along the brook, and 50 yards farther on I dropped the first and missed the second of a possible woodcock double, just to show Josh that it was okay to miss once in a while.

  Meanwhile, Josh hadn’t fired his shotgun, even though, in addition to those grouse, three or four woodcock had twittered up in front of Burt’s points and headed his way.

  After a couple hours, Kenny, Ike, and Jenny crossed the brook, and we stopped to compare notes and reconnoiter. They’d killed a grouse and three woodcock. Jenny had pointed one of the woodcock—her first ever.

  So far, the new dog was doing better than the new hunter.

  “These birds all fly so fast and crooked,” said Josh. “There’s always a tree or something in the way. I can’t get on them. Every time I think I’m on one, it goes sideways or just disappears.”

  “There’s your problem right there,” Kenny said. “You’re not supposed to think. You just gotta shoot. You want to kill grouse and woodcock, you’ve got to shoot fast and think slow.”

  “Like Kenny,” Ike said. “Kenny’s a notoriously slow thinker.”

  Josh smiled tentatively. I figured he was trying to decide when, if ever, he should take us seriously.

  By the time we got back to our starting point at the brook, I estimated that we’d flushed about a dozen grouse and close to twenty woodcock. Kenny, Ike, and I stopped shooting at woodcock after we each bagged a brace, our personal daily limits. Along the way, we killed two more grouse.

  We missed plenty of times, too, which gave us the opportunity to curse the birds, the dogs, the
trees, the sun, the Red Gods, plus each other. Many years in the woods together had taught us to curse imaginatively, eloquently, and fulsomely. We believe that creative cursing is a time-honored and essential element of upland bird hunting.

  Josh, I noticed, watched us with a kind of shy amusement.

  As we headed back to our trucks with our shotguns broken and the dogs at heel, Kenny leaned close to me and said, “So how’s the kid doing?”

  “He seems to be having fun,” I said.

  “That was an awfully good hunt,” he said. “We haven’t moved that many birds in a long time.”

  I nodded. “He never fired his gun. He keeps waiting for a wide-open shot, I guess.”

  “Big change from ducks over the water and pheasants over a field.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But the thing that worries me is, he just keeps smiling. I mean, doesn’t he know how to swear?”

  Back at Camp Timberdoodle, we lit the lamps and got a fire going in the stove, and I made a vat of Bill’s Famous Chili. We washed it down with some beer that Josh had brought. Kenny, Ike, and I took turns telling stories about the Good Old Days of New England bird hunting. Josh sat on the floor with Jenny’s chin on his leg and didn’t have much to say.

  When Ike and I woke up the next morning in the living room, Josh was gone. We found him in his sleeping bag out on the porch. “You guys snore pretty loud,” he said.

  We didn’t find as many birds on the second day, but we found enough to make it a good hunt. Jenny pointed her first-ever grouse. Ike kicked it up and missed with both barrels, then fired off an admirable string of expletives, all of which hit the mark dead on.

  Josh managed to touch off a few shots at woodcock. He didn’t hit anything, but he seemed pleased with his progress, although he did pass up several opportunities for heartfelt swearing.

  Finally, on our third and last day, he knocked down a straightaway woodcock over one of Burt’s points.

  Burt doesn’t retrieve woodcock. He finds them and stands over them until I come to pick them up. If it’s wing-tipped, he puts a paw on it.

  I cradled Josh’s woodcock in my hand, smoothed its feathers with my forefinger, then handed it to him. “Congratulations. Your first woodcock.”

  Josh smiled. “Lucky shot. About time.”

  “They’re all lucky shots,” I said.

  We quit in the middle of the afternoon. We had to go back and muck out Camp Timberdoodle before the long drive home.

  At our trucks, we put away our shotguns and took off our shooting vests and sat on the tailgates sipping coffee.

  “Damn good trip,” said Ike. “A helluva lot better than last year.”

  “Sorry I didn’t shoot better,” said Josh.

  “Yeah,” said Kenny, “we never miss.”

  Josh smiled. “I had no idea what to expect,” he said. “I’ve read everything I could get my hands on about grouse hunting in New England, but this was ... it was awesome.”

  “It’s not always like this,” said Kenny.

  “Truthfully,” Ike said, “we haven’t had hunting like this for years.”

  Josh shrugged, and it was hard to tell if he believed us.

  “Where are the dogs?” Kenny asked.

  Burt was over at the edge of an alder thicket, pointing. Little Jenny was stretched out behind him, honoring his point.

  “Lookit that,” murmured Ike. “Lookit my bird dog.”

  “Go shoot those birds,” I told Josh.

  He smiled, loaded up, and headed over to the dogs.

  “I feel bad for him,” said Kenny as we watched Josh move up behind the dogs. “Poor kid’s got no perspective. We’ve found a helluva lot of birds this weekend. Anything that doesn’t measure up to this, he’ll be disappointed.”

  “At least we’ve given him something to remember,” I said. “Now he’s got a couple of good old days all his own.”

  As we three old-timers watched, Josh eased up beside the dogs, paused to say something to them, then moved ahead. Two woodcock helicoptered to the tops of the alders, and Josh’s gun came up. He fired twice. The birds kept going.

  “Dammit,” Josh said conversationally, and he muttered a few other things I couldn’t quite make out.

  “Hear that?” Ike said. “The lad’s catching on. I do believe we’ll make a bird hunter out of him yet.”

  Chapter 8

  HOW TO MISS FLYING GROUSE

  Sporting magazines periodically publish articles titled, with minor variations, “How to Improve Your Grouse-Shooting Odds.” It’s earnest, practical stuff, often accompanied by charts that factor such variables as wingspeed, angle of ascent, shot size, muzzle velocity, choke, and pattern, along with inspiring diagrams depicting ruffed grouse and clouds of birdshot colliding in midair.

  Actually, I’d be tempted to take it all as mean-spirited satire. If you hunt grouse, you know what I mean.

  These articles prey mostly on the false hopes of frustrated beginners. The so-called expert writers take gleeful delight in pointing out that while grouse don’t fly as fast as sea ducks, doves, or many other shotgun targets, they rarely fly straight or at constant speeds, and they are uncanny in their ability to put trees and brush between themselves and a man with a shotgun. Like crafty old major-league pitchers, grouse love to throw change-ups, curveballs, sinkers, and knuckleballs. They dart, dip, and move at unpredictable angles. Then, just often enough to keep you off balance, they throw a high hard one at you. They usually flush from unexpected places at unexpected times. Then there are factors such as sun (which is always in your eyes), hilly and brushy terrain, uncertain footing, wind, and—well, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another.

  Still, claim the writers, you will shoot more birds if you follow their ten (or seven or twelve) surefire tips.

  According to the expert authors (I’m summarizing here), readiness and sharp reflexes help. You have to be mighty quick and alert to mount your gun, take aim, get your muzzle out there in front of the bird, and snap off a shot—in 1 second. During that time a ruffed grouse can fly nearly 60 feet. Even a woodcock moving at a leisurely 25 mph—under a head of steam, woodcock can fly quite a bit faster—travels 37 feet in that single second.

  These sober and informative (or tongue-in-cheek, it’s hard to tell) magazine essays generally advise aspiring upland marksmen to put in a lot of time at the sporting-clays range, invest fortunes on customized shotguns, and practice dry-mounting and swinging in the privacy of their own living rooms. Twice a day, 15 minutes per indoor practice session, is about right.

  It makes pretty entertaining reading, if you’ve got a taste for masochism. But it occurs to me that these articles might dupe naive readers into believing that shooting a flying grouse is actually a skill, implying that it can be learned and perfected.

  Anyone who’s hunted with shotguns for a while knows that this is arrant nonsense. I’ve been tromping the uplands for nearly half a century now. I’ve hunted with skeet and sporting-clays pros, grizzled outdoor writers, and old-time market hunters, as well as rank beginners. I’ve kept a detailed journal of my days afield, and I can assure you that the only useful wisdom on the subject of hitting flying grouse with a shotgun resides in the Eternal and Immutable Law of Averages.

  Wingshooting skill has nothing to do with it.

  Here are the hard facts: For every twelve grouse flushed, four escape unseen; of the eight that the hunter glimpses, four are out of range, disappear too quickly, or otherwise evade getting shot at; of the four shots that the hunter takes, three are misses.

  To be more specific: For every twelve grouse my partners and I have encountered in 45 years of upland hunting, we’ve shot exactly one. I’ve seen the hunting logs of other upland gunners, including some who write how-to-shoot-grouse articles, and their records are virtually identical to mine.

  Oh, I know, we all have a hot streak now and then, and hunting with one of those precious hotshot grouse dogs can temporarily up the odds—just as those long cold streaks whe
n you can’t do anything right drops them. I’m talking about the long haul here.

  Still, with all due respect for those writers and other experts who recommend shooting quick or shooting slow; snap shooting or leading and following through; understanding angles, flight speed, and wind direction; practicing and calculating or relying on instinct; using bigger or smaller shot sizes, lighter or heavier shotguns, doubles or autoloaders, big or small bores, tight or open chokes; or consulting hypnotists and psychics ... the truth is: IT DOESN’T MATTER.

  Over the long haul, you’ll shoot one out of every twelve grouse you encounter, and there’s nothing you can do to change it.

  All those how-to-shoot-grouse articles, therefore, serve no purpose except to cruelly raise the expectations of unwary readers and to amuse the rest of us. If you expect to learn anything, prepare to be disappointed, because no matter what combination of skill, luck, practice, perseverance, woodsmanship, and experience you take afield, you will fail to connect eleven out of twelve times. No magazine article can change that.

  The Law of Averages will take care of that happy one- in-twelve triumph for you. Hitting grouse isn’t the problem One memorable success, eleven failures. That’s it.

  The real question is: How are we supposed to handle those eleven other times?

  What grouse hunters really need is a repertoire of explanations, excuses, and alibis to account for a 92-percent rate of failure.

  Here’s where my half-century of missing flying grouse can help. So, as a service to grouse hunters old and young, I have scoured my journals and consulted my partners and other expert grouse-missers, and I have compiled a compendium of excuses which, I am confident, any grouse hunter can adapt to his needs.

  Nothing beats sharp reflexes, a nimble imagination, and decades of practice. The master of the alibi can snap off a quick excuse in a wingbeat. Some gifted gunners seem to be blessed with a God-given talent for excuse making. They just pick it up from the beginning. They’re naturals. They are to be envied.

  For the average hunter, though, nothing beats a lot of practice. Novices shouldn’t expect to come up with anything truly original or inspired right away. Begin with modest expectations. Don’t be ashamed to plagiarize. Remember: Most good excuses have already been used. Because they’re good, they have survived the test of time. They still do the job. Even experienced alibiers fall into predictable patterns. You can learn from the experts.