Worst Hunter Ever

All I could think about as I looked at the small, empty hole in my shotgun was, 'Wow, I must be the worst hunter ever.' The hole was the former location of a pin that holds the trigger mechanism in place. It had been loose in the past, but I thought I had fixed the problem several months ago. Something must have shifted when I fired the gun.

Which brings me back to my original point. Worst hunter ever. The missing pin was the end of a morning of failure. I arrived early to camp and decided to go on a brief hunt before my friend Nick arrived. Following the instructions of the only neighbor in the area, I headed down a snowy two-track to a certain patch of woods where he had flushed grouse on a recent walk. It was cold, and I briefly put my trigger hand in my pocket. I swear grouse can sense when you are not ready. As if on cue, a grouse flushed from my left, crossing over the open space of the two track into the woods on the right.  I belatedly fired through the trees after the bird and predictably missed. What a golden opportunity! Quickly another grouse flushed, this time on the right, and flew through the trees without giving me a chance to shoot. Why am I always surprised by a second flush? I constantly remind myself that grouse flush in groups, but somehow I am never ready. Finally, a third grouse flushed from my left and flew down the two track behind me. This time I had a clear shot, but in the time it took for me to turn around and aim the bird had put considerable distance between us, and I missed again.

Wow. Not 100 yds down the trail and I had already flushed three grouse, shooting at and missing two of them. I hadn't even realized I was hunting yet until the first bird flew. Frustrated but encouraged, I found some grouse tracks and followed them to no avail before returning to camp as Nick and his father and brother arrived.

After regaling them with my story, getting the wood stove going, and generally setting up camp, we set off in a line through the woods. Wouldn't you know we never saw or heard any trace of a grouse for the rest of the day despite spending almost every daylight hour on the hunt - a far cry from the abundant activity of previous years when we heard flushes every 15 minutes, and grouse tracks were so numerous there was no point in following them.


To sum up: three grouse flushed and missed in the first five minutes, hours of walking through brush without even a trace of a grouse, and one broken gun. Sounds like a miserable day, but somehow I thoroughly enjoyed it. The northern Michigan woods is a beautiful landscape - one that I don't get the chance to experience much these days. Grouse hunting is really just hiking with a purpose. And I like hiking even without a purpose, particularly with friends. One day maybe I'll take hunting a little more seriously, but for now I'm satisfied with being the worst hunter ever. Besides, I managed to fix my gun for a whopping $7.

A big thanks to Nick and his family for inviting me to their camp again. I can honestly say that the camp and surrounding woods is one of my favorite places in the world.

Grouse Camp

This year, I made the long drive up from Mississippi to Michigan to stay with my family over Christmas.  I also managed to head up into northern Michigan for a couple days of grouse hunting with my brother, David, and my friends Nick and Matt.  My hunting and shooting experience is quite limited.  I shoot clay pigeons every once in a while and can count the number of times I've gone grouse hunting on one hand.  Success has also been limited.  In fact, rather than saying I went up north to go grouse hunting, I sometimes prefer to say I went up north to "walk around the woods with a gun."

My buddy Nick invited us to stay at his family's deer camp, which is a primitive but well outfitted cabin in the north woods of Michigan.  I've stayed at "Deer Camp" quite a few times now, but its always been either "Trout Camp" or "Grouse Camp" for me.  Nick has been featured several times in this blog, as he is the one who had the bachelor party in Colorado and got me the fly reel cufflinks.

We got up to camp the morning after Christmas and immediately started hunting.  The morning was completely unsuccessful with no grouse flushed along along a pine and aspen ridge where we had flushed a lot of grouse on a previous trip.  Disappointed, we headed back to camp for a quick lunch and headed out again with Nick's dad as a guide.  He led us to an area that had been clear cut recently, which is ideal for shooting since there are no trees or branches to contend with.  Pretty quickly, a grouse flushed ahead of Nick and he shot but it was pretty far away.  Grouse often flush in groups, and sure enough, four or five more flushed in quick succession.  Amazingly, we didn't get any of them despite the fact that each of us shot at least once.  In our defense, they all flushed quite far away.

All the grouse had flown up a wooded hill, so we decided to see if we could find them again.  Grouse often land in trees so I had my eyes riveted upward.  Its not often that you see a grouse before it flushes, but if you do, it should be an easy shot.  I spotted an odd shape far up in a tree, and, never being one to shoot and ask questions later, I asked my buddy Matt if he thought it was a grouse.  I actually brought my gun up to point in the direction I was looking.  Of course, it was a grouse, and it cleverly flushed as soon as I brought my gun back down.  I didn't get it, and I was quite mad at myself for not shooting, but looking back, if I had shot an owl or something, I would have been devastated.

We didn't find any more of the grouse we had flushed, so we headed back down to the clear cut.  Pretty quickly, Matt flushed a grouse and shot it.  Matt is by far the best shot in the group so it was no coincidence.  We were all pretty stoked as I don't think any of us expected to actually shoot anything (this expectation was set by previous hunting expeditions).  With newfound enthusiasm, we marched through the rest of the clear cut and proceeded to flush zero grouse.  Then we headed back toward camp through a pine forest.  Shockingly, I spotted another grouse in a mid level tree branch.  A wispy pine tree stood between us.  This one was well within range, and I knew it was a grouse, but once again I hesitated, trying to maneuver around the pine tree.  It flushed and I never even got a shot.  Matt told me I should've just shot through the pine tree, as some of the pellets were bound to get through.

The mighty hunter

Ruffed Grouse

All in all, it was a huge success compared to past outings.  There is a surprising amount of meat in one grouse.  Here it is being cooked with fresh wintergreen leaves over a wood stove.

It was delicious.  After dinner, things got a little crazy.

But as they say, what happens at grouse camp stays at grouse camp...