The Grouse Thief

Storm and Freighter were out for some grouse hunting last Thursday. It was an unseasonably warm day for early November.

I left my coat at home and only wore a long-sleeved shirt and my hunter’s orange vest and at times felt too warm. We made sure to stop often to water and rest the dogs since they were working in cover where there was no breeze.

The Leaves Are Off the Trees, But The Cover Is Still Dense

Right off the bat Freighter flushed a covey of three grouse and hubby got one of them. Freighter marked it and retrieved it until Storm got to him and took it right out of his mouth. The thief!

Freighter was a nice boy and let her have it. I am not sure any other dog could have gotten away with doing that to Freighter. He likes his birds.

Hubby made sure to avoid trouble by calling Storm in and getting the bird quickly.

This bird was smaller than the one the dogs got a couple of weeks back. It was probably a young bird.

Hubby and the dogs continued on.

Storm not wanting to be shut out of the fun got a bit ahead and flushed a bird too far away from where hubby was standing. Freighter hunts nice and close. He is really shaping up to be a good hunting partner.

We made sure to get the dogs in water to cool them off because they were heated up. There is a small stream on one side of a levee so rather than using the bridge, hubby and the dogs crossed the stream. We need to be mindful of where we swim the dogs and where they hunt because trapping is also open and we would not want the dogs to end up in a trap.

The dogs worked hard and ended up having 10-12 flushes, but there were some no shots and a couple of misses due to trees and branches being in the way. The day ended with only one bird in the bag.

As a reward to Freighter for his hard work, hubby took him out by himself a couple of days later. He had 13-15 flushes with two flushes of 4 birds at a time! Unfortunately, hubby was not in position to try for most of these birds. A second hunter would have been helpful to try for the birds as they cleared the trees or crossed the road. Hubby was really hoping to get a bird for Freighter to retrieve, but it did not work out.

Next weekend grouse will close for firearm deer season and it won’t reopen until December. Whether the dogs get out again depends on how much snow we get in December. So far this season was much better than last season because at least the dogs have had flushes. These are young birds so it won’t hurt to let them grow up and hopefully have a successful breeding season next Spring.

Note: I appreciate your patience while I worked out the problems I was having with the blog last week. It is back to my normal blogging schedule this week so look for new posts Monday through Friday with a Sojos giveaway beginning tomorrow.

18 thoughts on “The Grouse Thief”

Storm storm storm you little thief. Gambler would of did the same thing. That is a ton of flushes great days hunting.

It sounds like you are getting some great hunting adventures in even if you aren’t bagging any birds. I am surprised how Freighter will let Storm take the bird from him. He is one gentleman dog with her!

Bird or dummy, Macha always turned over her retrieve to Cullen, it was their ritual! Little hunting for them this year, but Macha’s retrieves may or may not go to Little Butt…sometimes she just takes off to impress upon Erynn who the big/older/dominant girl is? Shades of Storm?
We are hoping for a mild winter.

Hahaha thief!!!!

(P.s – your site loaded normally today!) Yay!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!

Haha! Oh Storm!

We are always careful with tracking this time of year with all the hunting and trapping going on. Scary stuff for non hunters. Sounds like the dogs have the hunting down, but hubby needs some training!

Great action shots! Looks like they had a ball hunting 🙂

xoxo,
Ginger, Matt & Matilda

So nice to have you back; I was in withdrawals. LOL

Hi Y’all!

BOL! Storm! I thought you were supposed to be the coach!

Y’all come on by,
Hawk aka BrownDog

Freighter loves his older sister. That’s all there is to it. And Storm knows it, too.

Callie was patient with her younger sisters – she let them take just about anything from her. But Shadow was (and still is) protective of food, even with Callie. (But not with me or her Daddy.) I always had to watch Callie like a hawk so Shadow could eat in peace. I still have to watch Ducky for the same reason. She’s a little sneak – just like Callie was.

Freighter is such a good sport! It’s a good thing they didn’t fight over that bird, I don’t even want to think of that outcome. Looks like it was a nice outing anyway, even if there wasn’t more than one bird caught.

2 Brown Dawgs November 10, 2015

One benefit to having a good strong recall is that when hubby called them, they came so they had no time to fight over a bird. 🙂

Oh, those girls sometimes! Sheba is known to often steal toys right out of Luke’s mouth, and he puts up with it too.
I’m glad you at least had an active season even though there weren’t many birds to retrieve. Glad your blog is back to normal too!

Love the photo of Freighter running in the forest! Sorry to hear you have blog problems. That can be frustrating. I can totally understand being strapped for time. Ah, what to do!