Upland Autumn

by William G. Tapply

  When Frank Woolner came home from the Second World War in 1945, he became a full-time outdoor writer. He had no college education, so he learned his craft by reading, writing, and rewriting, and before he was done, he’d published hundreds of articles and several books on hunting, fishing, and nature. He wrote a weekly outdoors column for his local newspaper, and for 32 years he reigned as editor-in-chief of Salt Water Sportsman.

  Although Woolner’s name is most closely associated with surf fishing, he was, as were many sporting writers of his era, a generalist. He wrote as knowledgeably about wildflowers and tree frogs as he did about woodcock hunting and striped bass fishing, and he came by his knowledge first-hand. If you didn’t find him at his typewriter, you knew he was outdoors, taking whatever the season offered. He fished for every species that swam in fresh and salt water, and he hunted every bird and animal that was legal. When nothing was in season, he tromped the fields and woods, looking, sniffing, listening, and learning. When he wrote about it, you knew he’d been there.

  It would be a mistake to regard Timberdoodle! as just another how-to hunting book. Woolner doesn’t even begin to discuss hunting until Chapter 6, and of its eleven chapters, only four are devoted to hunting and shooting. In “Black Powder Days,” he gives us the best history I’ve read anywhere of the market-hunting era. “Say Grace!” contains tried-and-true woodcock recipes from hunters and their wives (including my mother). The balance of the book is natural history, a well-considered mixture of Woolner’s own observations and those of fellow hunters, game biologists, and other writers.

  He devotes an entire chapter to the charming courtship ritual of the woodcock. I have reread it dozens of times, and I always get a tingle. It’s simply as good as outdoor writing gets.

  Listen: “Never have I been close enough, or had hearing acute enough, to catch the soft, gurgling note that biologists say precedes the peent, but I watch my springtime friend strut back and forth, beak down and very proud of himself. His movements are vaguely reminiscent of the shorebird clans: he bobs when he walks, like a flesh-and-blood toy. He buzzes at intervals. Suddenly he flushes, flying low and fast for 50 or 60 feet before spiraling upward. Up, up—to a dizzying height where my glasses catch him again, hanging on fluttering wings some 200 to 300 feet above the somber, winter-killed earth, etched against the deepening blue gray zenith and the white sparks of stars. At flush, even my old ears have caught the wild twitter of wings, a sound that every upland gunner of eastern America will carry to his grave as a touch of paradise previewed.”

  Timberdoodle! is an informative and entertaining book, certainly among the best ever written about the American woodcock. But more than anything else, it’s a love letter from an incurable romantic to the elusive object of his passion. “It is unthinkable,” Woolner concludes, “to contemplate a world bereft of woodcock. We need comings and goings in the cold springtime and the hectic flush of fall. I still envision timberdoodles etched against a full moon, even though I know that this is ridiculous—but is there any man of our company who wars against a dream? Love timberdoodle, but never take him for granted. Count him an easy mark at your peril. Protect him forever.”

  Amen.

  Chapter 12

  T′AIN′T FAIR

  “T’ain’t fair to the birds,” insists [my friend the taxidermist]. “With a good bird dog, all a fella has to do is walk along till his dog goes on point. Then he goes in an’ shoots the bird. He has his gun ready an’ he can’t miss—well, anyways he shouldn’t. No fightin’ the brush, no bein’ caught with your pants down when a bird flushes—hell, that ain’t even huntin’. That’s just goin’ out for a walk.”

  —Ruffed Grouse, John Alden Knight, 1947

  There are three ways to hunt ruffed grouse: with a good dog, with a poor dog, and with no dog at all.

  A good pointing dog makes grouse hunting easy. It’s the classic way universally depicted in paintings, and if you believe the literature of the sport, it’s the standard way.

  The art and the stories come either from another era or from a romantic notion of how it’s supposed to be. Once upon a time, New England grouse were abundant and lightly hunted and naive. They sat tight for a pointing dog and waited for men with shotguns to come along and kick them up.

  Nowadays, at least in my experience, dogs that can handle our skittish PhD grouse are scarcer than clean doubles in thick cover. In more than 40 years of upland hunting, I’ve shot over just three certifiably excellent grouse dogs: Corey Ford’s Cider, Keith Wegener’s Freebie, and Skip Rood’s Waldo. All three dogs were old by the time I made their acquaintance, and my times in the woods with them were few.

  Frank Woolner, author of the classic book Grouse and Grouse Hunting, put it this way: “I am tempted to say that a great grouse dog is less common than the Holy Grail, but this is patently unfair. I have not seen the Holy Grail in my lifetime, yet I have hunted with and admired a few wonderful grouse dogs. Very few.”

  My own limited experience with great grouse dogs makes my expertise on the subject suspect. On the other hand, I’ve hunted with enough fair-to-poor dogs to know the difference.

  A really good grouse dog is smart and old. He makes mistakes when he’s young, but he learns from them. He’s born with a love of hunting and a sharp nose. For him, the most intoxicating smell in the world is that of a grouse. A good grouse dog wants desperately to point. It takes him a lot of trying and erring to figure out how to get the job done. The more arthritic he becomes, the better he hunts. He’s slow and methodical. He recognizes likely cover, approaches it cautiously, stays in contact with his hunters, and points from long distance.

  Men who have owned one of these special dogs all say the same thing: They were patient, they got lucky, and they count their blessings. Good bloodlines help, although champion field-trial genes don’t necessarily make good grouse dogs.

  Hunting with a great grouse dog is, as John Alden Knight’s friend said, “just goin’ for a walk.” After decades of hunting behind poor dogs, I’ve discovered that going for a walk in the autumn woods with a good one is a treat, and if you shoot the way I do, it’s plenty fair to the birds.

  There are many species of poor grouse dogs, but they all have one thing in common: They do more harm than good. They hunt too close and too slow, so that the grouse flush before they can point them, and they miss a lot of birds entirely. Or, they range too far and too fast, in which case they’re beyond sight and sound if they point—or, more often, they flush the birds out of shotgun range.

  I’ve done a lot of grouse hunting with poor dogs, and I’ve tolerated them because, for better or worse, I like dogs, and because, for all their faults, even an otherwise terrible bird dog will occasionally find a wing-tipped grouse that’s burrowed under a blowdown. I figure any dog that does that has earned his supper, although it suggests that keeping a good retriever at heel might be a better way.

  I’ve owned poor dogs, and I’ve hunted with other men’s poor dogs. The only advantage of hunting with my own poor dog is that I’m the one who gets to yell at him.

  Some dogs, when they’re young, show flashes of brilliance even though they generally behave poorly. A few of them eventually get it and become prized grouse masters. Sadly, most dogs never get it. There’s no such thing as a mediocre, or average, grouse dog, although men who own poor dogs optimistically refer to them as okay.

  I’d rather hunt with dogs—even poor ones—than no dogs at all. It is the classic way.

  But many of the craftiest grouse seekers I’ve known preferred to hunt without dogs. Frank Woolner was one of them. William H. Claflin, Jr., who wrote two delightful, privately printed books on New England grouse hunting (Partridge Rambles, 1937, and Partridge Adventures, 1951), was another. Claflin wrote: “When I travel through partridge cover I prefer not to have a dog along. I guess the simple answer is I am more interested in partridges and the country they live in than I am in pointers or setters.”

  My old friend Burton L. Spille
r, on the other hand, couldn’t imagine hunting grouse without dogs. “I will concede to any man the right to hunt grouse in any legal manner he chooses,” Burt wrote in his 1962 story “Half-Century Grouse,” “but when he says that dogs, even good dogs, are a liability, I am forced to disagree. I couldn’t begin to list in this space all the advantages afforded a grouse hunter by even a mediocre dog. But I will say this: A dog will find more birds than any man can possibly find alone, give him more shots, find dead or wounded birds that would otherwise be lost, and be the best companion with whom one ever went afield.”

  It should be noted that Burt Spiller’s heyday was a time when grouse were plentiful and lightly hunted compared to today. It was easier to forgive a dog that busted a few grouse out of range and ran past others. There were always more birds, and they’d sit tight often enough that even a poor dog might point a few of them.

  Burt Spiller was a forgiving man. When I hunted with him, we always had poor dogs with us, and he never complained.

  For me, it’s more complicated, because I have a hard time choosing between the dogs and the birds, and I’m greedy enough to want the best of both, however rare that might be. But these days, when every grouse is precious, I’m considerably less forgiving of poor dog work than Burt was.

  I like to hunt alone, when there’s no one to blame but myself. I have found that picking my way through birdy cover without a dog taps into something atavistic and important that’s absent when dogs are doing the hunting for me.

  Hunting without a dog is ... hunting. I find myself thinking like a grouse, scanning the cover, imagining where a bird might be lurking, how close he might let me approach, which direction he’ll choose to fly.

  Still-hunting, without early warning signals from a pointing dog, keeps my primitive hunter-gatherer senses alert. I notice everything—the pecked apples under a gnarled old Baldwin, the drill holes of woodcock in the mud, the flick of a squirrel’s tail in the trees, the rustling in the dry leaves that might be a grouse.

  I’m always ready for that sudden, explosive flush. I carry my shotgun at port arms, and I watch where I step. I expect grouse to do the unexpected.

  I move slowly and quietly, hoping to sneak up on them. The ultimate still-hunting thrill is to spot a grouse on the ground or perched on a stone wall or in an apple tree before he sees me. Not that I’ll shoot him. I won’t, not unless he’s flying. But still, sneaking up on an unsuspecting grouse is for me an unmitigated triumph, whether or not I end up killing it.

  Ruffed grouse are survivors. Their senses are fine-tuned for predators. If they can elude hawks and foxes, the human predator, no matter how stealthy he is, rarely takes them by surprise. There are many kinds of noises in the woods. Grouse hear them all and can probably identify them, but I’m convinced that the sound of a man moving quietly and at a steady pace will not panic them. As long as they know where you are, they’ll let you get close before they flush. Sometimes, in fact, they’ll just sit tight and let you pass. The trick is to stop near a likely hiding place and remain still for a few seconds. When they lose track of you, they get nervous and flush.

  Many seasoned partridge veterans—including Frank Woolner—have contended that jump shooting puts more grouse in the game pocket than hunting with dogs. I can’t verify this, but I do believe that the jump shooter gets more good chances per bird flushed than everybody except that rare lucky fellow who owns a really good pointing dog.

  More to the point, a man skilled at still-hunting can profit from his craft even when he shares the woods with a dog. As John Alden Knight wrote, “If you depend on a dog, or dogs, to find your grouse for you, you will miss a great deal of the pleasure that this brand of hunting has to offer. Aimless, painless wandering through grouse country in the wake of a good dog unquestionably will get birds for you; but if you plan your hunts and find your birds with the incidental help of a good dog, not only will you have better shooting but you will get more fun out of it.”

  Chapter 13

  WHAT’S THE POINT?

  Keith and I were following the edges of a tongue of thick cover that divided two old pastures. Burt, my Brittany, was working the tangly stuff between us. Suddenly Burt stopped, hesitated, then began tiptoeing. His stubby tail was a blur. “Dog’s birdy,” I called. “Roading a grouse, if I’m not mistaken. Be ready.”

  A moment later, the grouse spurted noisily but unseen out of the tip of the thicket, far ahead of us. Burt heard it, raised his head, thought about giving chase, then kind of shrugged and returned to business.

  A minute later he locked on point. “Get ready,” I called to Keith.

  I shouldered my way into the thick cover. Burt’s nose was quivering. Another step, and the woodcock flushed. My gun came up, but the bird was flying low, heading Keith’s way.

  He shot twice.

  Then a second woodcock whistled up and angled away to my right. By the time I swung in its direction, it was just a flicker in the leaves. I shot at the flicker. An instant later I saw the bird above the treetops, flying hard, already out of range.

  “Well?” I called.

  “Nope. You?”

  “Me neither.”

  Four other woodcock had settled into this 10-acre patch of cover. Burt pointed each of them. Keith and I missed them all.

  When I caught up with Keith, he was rummaging in the pocket of his hunting vest. “At this rate I’m gonna run out of shells.” He looked at me. “You notice anything peculiar?”

  I shrugged. “Burt was pretty damn good.”

  “How many shots did you take in there?”

  “Not sure,” I said. “Guess I wasted five shells. Maybe six.”

  “Me too.”

  “Well, hell,” I said. “That’s not worth noticing.”

  “So what’s your excuse?”

  “No excuse.” I shrugged. “I’m a pisspoor wingshot, I guess.”

  “What about the foliage? Kinda thick for good shooting. Wasn’t the sun in your eyes or something?”

  “Nah. Lousy shooting, that’s all.”

  He nodded. “Exactly my point. No excuses. No complaints. I remember when you’d cuss and scream whenever you missed, which was quite often, as I recall.”

  “So did you.”

  “Sure I did. So what’s the matter with us?”

  “Matter?” I said. “Nothing. I’m having a pretty good time, myself.”

  “Precisely,” said Keith. “A bunch of easy chances, not a feather in my pocket, and I’m sitting here thinking, hey, this is perfect.”

  “Well,” I said, “it’s close to perfect, though I suppose I’d like to reward Burt’s points now and then with a dead bird, just to remind him of what it’s all about.”

  Keith arched his eyebrows at me. “So what is it all about?”

  When old Bucky died—hard to believe it was 20 years ago—I couldn’t bring myself to replace him right away. I kept telling myself I should get a new dog, but one year stretched into a dozen. During that dogless time, many October and November weekends came and went and my shotgun stayed in its case. I left it up to Keith, Skip, Art, and other friends who owned bird dogs to invite me to hunt with them. If no one called, I didn’t go.

  When I didn’t go, I missed it. Driving past an autumn field bordering an overgrown orchard, or a golden hillside sprouting head-high poplar and birch, or a meandering valley of alder along a woodland brook—those sights never failed to stir old longings.

  But not hunting did not burn a hole in my stomach. I had plenty of good memories; maybe a lifetime’s worth. They sustained me through those New England autumn weekends when I stayed home, and a few outings a season were enough to keep me going for another year.

  When I thought about it, it worried me. I’d seen it happen to men of my father’s generation. The loss of the hunting urge seemed, in them, like the natural progression of things. Their dogs got old. So did they. And their fires died. Hunting, they said, was too strenuous, took too much energy, left them too lame the ne
xt day. Anyway, they’d already shot a lifetime’s worth of birds, and it wasn’t anything like the good old days, when a man couldn’t possibly feel guilty about harvesting a limit of grouse or woodcock.

  I could never figure out if this was their rationalization, and if it was, what exactly they were trying to rationalize. But when I felt it beginning to happen to me, it just seemed as if some vital element in my soul was slowly bleeding away, the way, I’m told, the sex drive or the burning need to accumulate money eventually dries up. When it’s gone, you don’t even miss it.

  I still liked to hunt, but I was beginning to understand that I could live without it.

  It’s possible that I might have gradually arrived at the point where I stopped hunting altogether—not because I’d weighed the costs and benefits of hunting and found the costs too high or the benefits too few, but simply out of inertia.

  Then Burt joined the family.

  The little Brittany was 8 weeks old and about 10 pounds of sniff and wiggle, a surprise birthday gift from my wife. I named him “Burton L. Spiller’s Firelight,” after my old friend.

  He sight-pointed a moth the July afternoon that I brought him home. He was pointing the pheasant wing I’d strung from the tip of an old fly rod before he was housebroken. That first summer, Burt pointed the quail that Marty Connolly scattered in the weeds for him, and I held him steady on a check cord. I tried to train him according to the books. It wasn’t hard. He quickly learned to come, to heel, to whoa, to sit, to stay. And I modified the normal command of kennel to get-in-the-car.