formula 1: grouse-a-palooza

I just got back from the 3rd Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic held out in western Pennsylvania on the historic Marienville trial grounds. I still have to write the official report, and so what follows is more about the general experience of not merely a wild bird trial, but a true canine endurance event.

As far as I can tell, grouse dog trialing is a game of faith. It might even be blind faith because a true all-age contender will be out of sight for large periods of time, and ideally seen through glimpses in cover coursing across the front in search of the next most likely covert. It takes faith on the part of handler and dog, again, because maybe 75% of what is happening is happening by sound alone. The talisman of such faith is maybe 1.5" deep and 1" at its widest, often copper, sometimes brass or nickel, frequently with an apostle's name attached. (Bob Sorri's is the one that immediately comes to mind.) The chorus of this faith is the jingle or clank of a bell through the trees, and the whoops and hollers of handlers trying to steer their dogs as the course turns and winds. Wild bird trials take faith, too, because one hopes, prays, and makes mystical incantations that grouse and woodcock will be in those next most likely coverts, and that the luck of the drawing also coincides with the luck of weather, course, and cover.

It was cold this weekend -- which might sound goofy from a guy who takes vacations above the Arctic Circle -- but I doubt it got much above freezing, if at all, all weekend. Long-timers familiar with the courses didn't lament the cold so much as the sunshine, claiming that birds would be even harder to find in clear sky weather. And along with the luck of finding birds, there's also the equally strong prayer that a dog doesn't get pulled off course and out of contention by the white flash of deer, or get embroiled in a painful argument with a porcupine. Both of which happened.

A two-hour stake, especially relatively early in the spring grouse trial season, is itself a game of faith -- especially if you live in the snowbelt and don't have the ability to send a dog south for the winter to be conditioned for a two-hour slugfest through mud, marsh, water, high-bush blueberries, and conifer thickets -- in short, grouse cover. I saw some dogs never get their ground race on, a bunch of dogs downshift noticeably at the hour mark (but still finish strongly, credibly, and to the front), and a handful still pulling away as strong as they started, still craving the next objective. It takes faith to run a dog for two hours. And the dogs that can will make all our dogs stronger.

I don't normally care too much for most of the articles in North American Hunter, but Joe Arnette wrote a great piece in the February/March 2011 issue called 'High Octane Dogs Aren't for Everyone.' He concludes in the following way: "Although I still have no interest in following dogs on horseback, and I've long ago thrown away my track shoes for chasing points, when spring is on the make, I'll continue to dream dreams that will never be. Magical dogs with music in their feet, speed in their stride, and distance in their brain are better left to range the forgiving covers of the mind's eye." (p. 61) Nevertheless, as William Brown wrote in The Field Trial Primer back in 1934, "It [the sport of field trialing] aims to provide competition of the highest kind among bird dogs, to stimulate enthusiasm among owners, and to act as a practical guide for breeders by setting a high standard of performance." (p. 8) In short, while most of these screamers will make the average foot hunter a little nervous, the genetic cache of their stamina, strength, and bird-sense is something all of us would want in even our hunting dogs.

But the game of faith is perhaps even more profound when one considers that, firstly, an all-age caliber dog will be stretching the limits of bellshot. (And keep in mind that at this time of year, in these temperatures, with this much moisture underfoot, handlers were frequently de-icing bells to be sure that their mutual faith could hold.) The paradox of course is that the adrenaline actually only truly spikes when the bell falls silent. The true genius of the grouse dog handler is knowing when the quality of an absence of sound signifies that a dog is now standing a bird -- as opposed to having slipped over a rise, the sound of its moving bell caught in a hollow, trapped by brush. And then triangulating the likely invisible dog's position from a sound that only meant something truly crucial after it had stopped.

In ancient Greek, the word pharmakon has multiple oppositional meanings including both poison and cure. And arguably the bell is the same. I know I'm not alone in saying that when I hunt grouse I don't use a beeper or a bell. And Dennis and Bob have seen the proof of what happens in our western Maine covers when a hard-running, jangling dog approaches a brood sunning by a trail. And so, it was no surprise to come across at least two dogs, stopped and silent, but who before even a flushing attempt was made were indicating that their bird had left, if not as it heard the bell, then perhaps as it heard the relative cacophony of a handler calling point, horses carrying judges, and maybe even the gallery's whispered conversations down the trail. The short version is that the single piece of equipment critical to locating the dog locating the bird may also be the same thing that scares the bird out of its roost.

Besides watching mostly red-phase grouse boil out of covers ahead of dogs standing tall, the other major highlight of the trip was getting to meet Joe McCarl's 7x grouse champion, Hard Driving Bev -- there to be run by Joe's grandkids in a junior handler's stake after the main event. At 12yrs old, a little deaf, and a little heavier from a well-earned life on the couch, she was still looking into the trees, eager to to get going and find just one more ruffed grouse. I can only imagine how many hundreds of grouse and woodcock that dog has smelled and seen -- I know I'm still having audio-hallucinations, wondering if the bells I can hear are really there or just out on the edge of my imagination.

exciting spring

Just got back from a weekend down in northern Virginia at the Old Dominion Vizsla Club trial on the grounds of the very beautiful Blandfield Plantation. I was asked by my wife to be out the house one weekend in March so she could do our taxes -- and then my field-trial-fairy-godmother, Joan, asked if I'd care to run her nice little (Field Champion) dog, Geena, in a couple of amateur stakes to see if a) I could earn a placement or two towards my judging qualifications, and b) we might get a few more points towards finishing Geena's AFC. That was all the excuse I needed.

Jozsi isn't ready to run yet, so I elected to enter Momo in Amateur Gun Dog as well to merit the six-hour drive. We met up with Jamie Fountain, the professional trainer who is getting Geena and Joan's great dog, Octane, ready for the VCA National Gun Dog Championships at the end of the month. I had first met Jamie at the VCA Nationals in Danville back in 2009 and was really pleased to spend a bunch of time with him. In addition to scouting for Jamie in the Open Gun Dog stake, I also ran his Brittany pup, Chip, in Amateur Walking Puppy, and was then able to scout for my southern friends, Michelle and Stephanie, with their Derby dogs, Luna, Frida, and Reece. All three of them ended up with a ribbon, but amidst three solid performances, the highlight came while scouting Reece.

His third find (of six) was that thing of complete magic that we all want to see a pointing dog do, a full 180 skid stop, high and tight front and back, and a bird too uncertain to move because of his precision and certainty of motion. It was a truly lovely moment in a very competent run. And while at least one other dog ran bigger and required some actual scouting, Reece looked so much like an aspiring, and potentially great, broke dog that he came away with the blue ribbon. I have been to a number of trials recently where it seemed that 'run' was being prized more than anything -- even if the dog was gone for minutes, never found on a bird, and brought forward by a scout -- and this was reassuring to me that even for a Derby stake, bird finding and style were being placed on a premium.

Shortly thereafter it started to rain. The birds started to get wet and the wind even less predictable. Joan's Geena has a heck of a nose and, like Momo, is a bird-finding machine. After breaking away like a bat out of hell and a solid first find, sadly our AGD run together was cut short as Geena then found herself on an exposed slope and stuck a point. I was already working the bird in front of her when the wind puffed from a slightly different direction and indicated that the bird was in fact running behind her, and she did a full 180 to indicate her mistake. I was allowed to relocate her, worked the bird successfully, and sent her on. However with the other dog committing a felony on a random resident pheasant ahead of us, and the rain coming down, Geena's previous footwork was sufficient to now get her picked up and end the brace. In the meanwhile, Momo had gotten bumped to the final brace and hit his first bird within 3-4mins. Three more finds, a perfect stop-to-flush, and a really nice run in the back course, and he and I were having a great time!!! My hunting buddy (who's only been trialed from a horse once before) came through like a champ. He placed FOURTH!!! I was told by one judge that if he hadn't taken a couple of small steps before I got in front of him to work the bird on a couple of his points, he would have placed higher. I knew he'd probably creep some after he saw his first bird, the steps an attempt to stay in contact with a wet, running bird -- and I couldn't really fault him for it. But his style was good and his footwork after the flush great, so I was still really satisfied.

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I am also very excited to serve as the official reporter for the 2011 running of the Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic, a two-hour wild bird stake under the auspices of the American Field. For those of you who don't subscribe to the Field -- and especially those of us that live in the snowy northeast and would rather be working dogs than digging -- it's almost like a time-travel trip getting that white-covered magazine every week. It's like being a kid again, literally waiting beside the letter box every Wednesday morning for my comics to drop through -- Warlord and then 2000AD -- so's I'd have them to read on the way to school. In this age of Tweeting and Facebooking, actually reading paragraphs devoted to trials big and small all across the country, sometimes months after they'd happened, feels delightfully idiosyncratic.

But then again, I like shooting a hammer gun.

In any case, I was flattered to be asked -- and I hope that I can not merely accurately capture the details of what happens but also the dogs' enthusiasm and application. If I can come remotely close to the skill of the great reporters -- Bill Allen, William Brown, William Bruette, amongst others -- I will be pleased with myself.

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Next weekend is back to Virginia to meet up with Jamie again, this time for the Conestoga Vizsla Club trial -- and hopefully Geena and I can figure each other out a little better and maybe Momo can squeak out another meritorious performance. Wish us luck.

xtranormal: Pirates of the Caribbean, Rudolf, Conan, and La Jetee

Thank you to everyone who has been nagging encouraging me to write more -- I guess it's a nice compliment. There are all kinds of things up in the air here at the Regal Vizsla, some of which can be disclosed, some of which can not. But for now, a mammoth post about all kinds of things.

In any case, we just returned from vacation in Sweden. And I hate to say it, but we went conventional. I'm not insulting Sweden or Swedes when I say that they are pretty conventional, but compared to Mongolia and the Ukraine, the alphabet is the same and Swedes' fluency in other languages (especially English) puts most of us to shame. As a point of comparison, we came out of the Arrivals area looking for a taxi into Stockholm. Unlike Mongolia where a horde of drivers will grab the luggage off your back with the magic password 'taxi', the entire taxi stand had roughly twenty cabs parked in an orderly grid with the drivers looking attentively at you waiting to see who you'd choose.

As a side note and after one more trip through JFK airport, I should also say that JFK is increasingly looking like the stereotype we used to have of 'Soviet' airports. Even with its non-enclosed smoking areas, giant Kalashnikovs of vodka, and assorted Merhan Nasseris sleeping in the lounges, Sheremetyva now seems polite, clean, and in relatively good working order. JFK is an embarrassment in terms of its facilities and what passes for customer service.

The purpose of our trip was really to spend three days above the Arctic Circle just outside Kiruna at the Ice Hotel. But we had elected to spend a couple of days on either side of that in Stockholm. Meg did a great job of finding nice places to stay in different districts and we spent a good chunk of each day walking around and being good old-fashioned tourists. On our first full day after consuming a fabulous buffet brunch, we decided to walk along the waterfront and over onto Djurgården to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was the largest warship of its time and sunk very shortly into its maiden voyage, after capsizing most likely due to stiff winds and insufficient ballast. The ship was brought up from the shallow sandy harbor roughly 350 years later in phenomenal shape, apparently because that part of the Stockholm waterway has relatively brackish water -- and whatever worm it is that eats ships underwater apparently needs salt. The restoration efforts are phenomenal and its museum strikingly effective. As a royal flagship, the Vasa has a level of ornamentation to it that, frankly, made me think of Pirates of the Caribbean and I kept imagining Geoffrey Rush jumping out from one of the cabins. We also took a harbor sightseeing cruise, one of the coldest things I have ever done -- and a little disconcerting to feel the wooden-hulled ferry breaking ice and brushing it out the way. And while we barely glimpsed a few of the islands, it was a great exposure to the Stockholm Archipelago -- which, like coastal Maine, is very different in the summer than it is in the winter.

After the Ice Hotel we stayed in Gamla stan (the 'Old Town'), whose waterfront can be seen in this photograph taken from the tour boat. The tall spire in the center belongs to the Tyska kyrkan (the 'German church'). Gamla stan has all the charm of other medieval cities that I've been to -- Edinburgh's Old Town, Kiev's Podil neighborhood, or indeed the venerable St. Andrews -- with its handful of longer, wider thoroughfares and narrow, meandering side streets. While we were there, several folks mentioned Talinn, the capital of Estonia, and I imagine I'd like it, too. We walked all over Gamla stan, enjoying the hidden nooks and crannies, the colors, the architecture, and the sense of time that inhabits the place.

We had talked about going to the Ice Hotel for a while... which in some ways is a little like going to Las Vegas, probably something everyone should do once (and most will not choose to do again). It is a brilliant marketing idea and a great solution as to how to diversify the economy in a distant, rural mining community with a still prominent indigenous community. One of the features of the Ice Hotel is the annual design competition that gives artists the opportunity to submit drawings for one of the thirty-two 'art suites'. Here are pictures of two of our favorites: Marcus Dillistone's Frigid-Dare and AnnaSofia Mååg's Arktikos. As you can probably tell, the first is set up like the inside of a fridge, the second features a mother and two cub polar bears (presumably) watching over the bed. For those of you who are interested, the hotel has both 'cold rooms' and 'warm rooms': when you stay in a cold room, and because the ice rooms are all open during the day for visitors to see them, all your stuff goes in lockers and when you're ready, you check out a sleeping bag, change into your sleeping stuff, slap on a hat, and clamber onto the reindeer pelts and into your bag. And marvel at how different the room looks with the lights off, in almost complete silence, and the cold crisp air on your face. And you are woken from your 20degsF sleep by a cape-clad gnome carrying a jetpack of warm lingonberry juice. True. Drank a lot of lingonberry juice and ate a bunch of reindeer meat on this trip.

We stayed in a regular ice-room our first night and then, at the hotel's imminent wise suggestion, spent the next two nights in a 'warm room.' Which felt like luxury. And it made enjoying our various excursions even more fun. Like riding an Icelandic pony for 2.5hrs in -20degsF in a quest for moose. We didn't see any moose till we got back to the stable and found them chomping down the horse forage. I'd love to say that I got to experience a true tölt on my lovely mare, Elja, but between the cold, snow, and a ridiculous amount of clothing it would be lying to say that I somehow summoned and sustained either of her gaits on our way round the training track afterwards.

We also visited a musher's kennel and took a dog-sled back to the airport. It was pretty interesting hearing about the legal requirements the Swedish government expects of mushers' kennels and also hearing about various ways they take care of their dogs. (FYI: at least in Sweden, a fair number of mushers cross-breed their huskies with pointers, in part to ensure a certain genetic variance, and in part to try and compete with Alaskan mushers who it seemed had bred pretty much developed the best huskies from within their 'pure' lines. Some folks refer to this cross-breeding as a 'Eurohound' -- although legendary Swedish musher, Egil Ellis, calls his experiments with cross-breeding to pointers, 'Scandinavian hounds.') There are some pretty not-surprising legal requirements of musher kennels -- minimum run space, insulated dog houses -- but the surprise was the requirement that no dogs were kenneled alone, but in pairs. What was pretty neat about our kennel tour was that we were guided by half of Belgium's Iditarod competitors, Dries Jacobs, and it was neat to hear how a young guy from a flat country with no real winter had comes to compete in both the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest and has hopes to compete in the Finnmark. He was excited to hear about how field trialers get their dogs in shape by roading and dragging cables, with horses and ATVs, and he in turn told us about the world of booties, massage, and ridiculously long races. A couple of things folks here might be interested in would be mushers' use of either Algyval or Emu Oil as a post-exercise liniment and shoulder vests that feature internal pockets for hand-warmers to ensure warmth and therefore blood flow for mushing dogs' shoulders and chest. The ride back to the airport the next morning was 75mins of freezing cold and pretty damn cool. There's not much else to say about it, other than it was a great way to leave Jukkasjärvi and head back to Stockholm.

*******

If any of my readers happen to be experts in either film history or Swedish maritime history, can you please explain to me what the heck this has to do with a 17thC Swedish warship? Meg and I both think someone punked the Vasa Museum. Turns out someone else saw this in 2007 and was equally confused.


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On the shuttle bus from one part of Terminal 2 at Charles de Gaulle airport, I couldn't help burst out laughing. If you haven't clicked on the 'Going to Ruffled Grouse Camp' cartoon on the right sidebar, please do so. It might be the funniest thing I've seen in a long long time (except perhaps 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy' with Swedish subtitles). However, it's the same voice giving you directions in English on French airport buses! "Oh! By the way, we have just passed your gate..."

As much as Stockholm's Arlanda airport was like landing in an Ikea store, Paris's Charles De Gaulle Terminal 2 wins for the 'best aesthetic design' award. If you click on the Wikipedia link, you'll see that Paul Andreu's design has experienced some challenges largely due to shoddy construction firms, but the pierced sides of the oval walls are pretty striking, especially with the contrast of bright carpeting and bare concrete. Would have taken more pictures, but I think it's illegal. Having said how nice the colors were, I should also say that for what seemed like long periods of time as we walked from the shuttle bus drop-off (back) to our departure gate, the place seemed deserted -- almost like Chris Marker's La Jetée (1962). Nevertheless, even the no-sink sinks in the washrooms were really cool.

*******

Worthy of mention: we left the boys at a new kennel this time around. I mention what will now be our short-stay only kennel, Grace Lane Kennels, because the comparison is useful for others and because I genuinely believe that the folks at Grace Lane are attentive to our dogs. But Grace Lane is a turn-of-the-century kennel with fixed runs for its clients -- and while they offer additional leash walking to customers, that might work for froofy 5lb dogs, but it's not going to be fun for either one of our two demons.

At Kim's recommendation, we took them up to the not-at-all-manly-sounding Bow Wow Bathhouse up in Deerfield, MA. First of all, as folks who do read this blog know, our dogs have done great with kenneling, even sharing a pickle barrel for a month out in AZ this summer. Second of all, I don't necessarily believe that an off-leash facility is the best place for every dog, or every dog at the same time, or that there aren't any number of charlatans out there who market 'off-leash' as a substitute for 'supervision,' but here's what I will say to Marcy at Bow Wow. I picked up my dogs and they were happy to see me -- but not anxious to get away. Momo has historically lost a little weight at boarding kennels, even if he is being fed above his normal ration and not getting the hours of free-running exercise he normally gets. He looked awesome this time around, his weight seemed the same, and his mood was clearly upbeat. Very pleased.

*******

The Team will be headed to Virginia for the next two weekends -- for the Old Dominion and Conestoga vizsla club trials. I hadn't planned to go and won't be running Jozsi (who needs more not-hand-planted birds), but was asked to run a friend's dog in the Amateur stakes in the faint hope that we can finish up her AFC. I am entering The Mominator in the Amateur Gun Dog Stakes and also in Conestoga's Hunting Dog stake, so we'll see what happens. If he decides he's going to light out 200yds and finds birds with as much style as he did at his last trial, who knows what will happen.

честита нова година

Or 'Happy New Year' as our Bulgarian friends would translate for us! For some reason, when I hear it said in Russian, I become Robin Leach: "Snoooo-vum Goooo-dum!" This may only be funny to my wife and I, but funny it nevertheless remains.

The first weekend of December was our CVVC Walking Trial and, in addition to fulfilling my usual bird-planting obligations, I ran both our dogs -- even though one isn't quite ready for the big leagues and the other more an energetic hunting dog than a trial dog. I won't give the long detailed story of why neither of my dogs got anywhere at our field trial, other than to say that sometimes you just have to make peace with the fact that sometimes they just do stuff you don't expect. If you'd have told me Momo would blow an honor (which was only seen by one judge who 'picked him up' after the heat was done) but have perfect footwork on 3 stops-to-flush and six finds, and that Jozsi would get picked up for footwork -- after laying down a beautiful ground race that also included one stop-to-flush and a five-bird covey find that flushed wild as I approached, I wouldn't have believed you. If I did learn one thing over again, it's make the judge tell you to do more on your next bird. I frigged around with a bird running around a tree for too long and should have fired my gun after the first two attempts and, in doing so, not given Jozsi the opportunity to take a step or two. Still had fun though. For better and worse, Momo still surprises me with how good he can be (even if he'll probably never make a trial contender) and Jozsi is so close to being a genuinely great dog.

If it was easy, we'd call it golf or brain surgery, right? We did have a professional photographer on the grounds for the whole weekend -- and George Ross did an amazing job lugging his gear around for 8hrs each day capturing some great pictures along the way. He was also kind enough to put together a slideshow video on Facebook and you can see it here. There is one nice picture of Momo on there, scrunching up his face as he busts through cover.

On a high note: I got my wife to come out to her first field trial and even got her on a horse. I should point out that while she enjoyed it, she still felt like riding a walking horse was a little too passive. This is the wife who runs roughly 8 miles a day and is looking for her first 50-miler to run come fall time. Here is my roadrunner with Jen + Dennis: and yes, it was not at all warm.

On another high note: I got called in for last-minute gunning duty for the call-back retrieves and the only gun I had was my Grant. Happily no-one complained about the guy with the musket.

We did also, finally, manage to get together again with Her Majesty, Broad Run's Ottilie of Red Oak, aka. Ottla. Wowzer! was she excited to see us! Again, I will spare the details -- but suffice to say that Momo is both a smart dog, a one-man dog, and a devious wee s*@$. So that I could work Ottla behind for the first time, I gave Momo to Annabella to handle. And did he quickly figure out that she was pretty inexperienced. And did we discover that Ottla is a wee hard-head like her mother? Yes, we did. But to her credit, she seemed to have settled into the novelty of the pinch-collar and checkcord by the final three-bird flush -- and when turned loose on her own birds hunted like a fiend.

2011 has all kinds of possible adventures ahead of us in dogdom. I will not divulge them yet, but I am excited by the possibilities.

gun trades and good kharma

I know Steve is going to blog about this some, but here's a story of everything somehow being connected. Folks who follow this blog know I spent July out in Arizona, but I don't remember if I mentioned that part of my journey featured stops in to see Libby + Steve in Magdalena. (Steve was kind enough to celebrate my passing-through here.)

Steve and I share an interest in a number of things -- Central Asia and fine shotguns being two of them. And I had brought my little 20ga out with me to Arizona and, of course, showed it to Steve. Who in turn showed me his own small arsenal. My little gun, incidentally, was a W & C Scott Model 300 private labelled for, probably, an ironmonger's shop -- but unusual in that it had long 30" barrels, open chokes (roughly Cyl and IC), and a very light weight (5lbs even). It was a wonderful upland gun that could be carried all day -- but was still capable of taking birds at decent distances with the right ammunition.

The past tense should signal that, in fact, Steve and I have traded guns. Steve will doubtlessly share what his motivations were, but when he offered me his 12ga Grant sidelever hammer gun, there was little need for deliberation. I can credit my love for fine side-by-side shotguns to my good friend, Paul Hermann, a true craftsman in his own right, who was kind enough to let me shoot trap with his 1926 Purdey -- although just once. From Paul, I came to appreciate that, especially when working with well-mannered pointing dogs, nothing need be rushed -- and the solemnity of the moment-to-happen marked with a certain grace. Taking the time to cock the hammers on your shotgun is another reminder of that.

The Grant is all original, as it was when it was built in 1879 -- heel and toe clips on the buttstock, 31" barrels, and traces of the original case color behind the hammers. The real treat is when you take it apart. I don't know if Steve ever had the locks off during its tenure with him, but the interior of the locks retain their full case color and the springs are still so strong that my gunsmith (who is easily 6' 2" and 220lbs and no weakling) had to order a special spring vise to compress them to reassemble the gun. As folks can see, the gun has Damascus barrels, although these too have a lot of wall thickness left in them -- some 0.037" at the thinnest spot way out towards the muzzle. Folks have mixed opinions about shooting Damascus barrels -- for me, even though it is chambered for 2 3/4" shells, I am going to shoot 2 1/2" RSTs and wear a filet glove on my left hand under a shooting glove.

At 7lbs 6oz this gun will not be my regular walk-up gun -- I have a 2 1/2" chambered 6lb 7oz Holloway & Naughton for that -- but I have a few schemes in mind to keep this gun in service. And I did shoot some training birds with it on Wednesday to give the boys some retrieve practice. It does fit me remarkably well. And it is beautiful. When you realise that all of these curves were molded and shaped by hand with files and sandpaper, something as utilitarian as a shotgun really does become a work of art. Even my wife thinks it is lovely.

Steve was also kind enough to send me a copy of Cyril Adams & Robert Braden's Lock, Stock, and Barrel (Safari Press, 1996) which contains the following immortal quote: "The preferred double has external hammers, double triggers, and no ejectors. After all, it is reliably reputed that God shoots a Grant sidelever hammer gun with 30" Damascus barrels made around 1890." (p. 177) Sadly, once you've gone sidelever, I have a feeling you never go back.

grouse camp: where the wild things are

Our annual pilgrimage to western Maine is over once again. Sadly. And while weather would have prevented Momo + Jozsi from really consolidating all the knowledge they were picking up, I would have surely loved to have stayed longer or had multiple opportunities to get up there this season. Last year was the first year we had been able to get up there in opening week -- and I was curious to see if the upswing in bird numbers we saw last year was the start of a trend or not. I can't tell from my blog notes whether the 34 bird contacts I reported last year included the ones Dudley had seen on his own or not -- but I was really pleased with the 29 bird contacts I had with Momo + Jozsi this year. Here's a picture of Jozsi all kitted out with his skidplate, e-collar, and Astro collar -- and I don't care how hard it is to hunt wild chukar in the mountains of Utah and Idaho, but trying to keep your feet on piles of wet, snowy slash on old skidder trails while carrying a shotgun is a whole other ball of wax.

As ever, we stayed with our old friends from Ellsworth days, Dudley and Susan, at their beautiful home overlooking Mooselookmeguntic Lake. And as ever, Momo's girlfriend, Lida, ran out to the truck mewing like a kitty cat, so happy to see her old friend again. Momo really does play with Lida differently than almost any other dog -- and she is clearly fond of him. It's quite charming. This was the view from their dock one brisk morning, as the fog moved across Toothaker Island midway across the lake and hid the far shore. The drive up had been relatively uneventful and I was lucky to be able to stop off for a quick lunch at Mike & Kim's in Northfield, MA, on the way. The drive up I91 is really nice even with the leaves clearly past their prime, but still in fading russets and browns, but after getting off I91 around St. Johnsbury, it's the drive east towards Oquossoc that seems strangely familiar -- the big red Locust Grove Farm barn in East Johnsbury, VT, the snow cap on the hills behind Lancaster, NH, and the LL Cote gas-station in Errol, NH, before turning on Route 16 into Maine -- and with it the increasing likelihood of seeing our favorite car-wrecking ungulate, the moose. This phone-camera picture doesn't really show anything, but it was a mother and her two calves who decided to amble across the road in front of me. (I was really bummed the camera failed on the way home and didn't get the two year-old buck who was grazing by the side of the road in broad daylight.)

The two-and-a-half days was great for both the boys. We spend a fair amount of time training, but there is nothing like a wild bird to get them recalibrated. This is only Momo's fourth season hunting grouse and, in all honesty, if we've had more than two weeks of actual bird contacts in that time, I'd be pleasantly surprised. For Jozsi, this is only his second excursion on grouse and he's still now had less than an actual week of bird contacts. But it only takes a few birds popping off unexpectedly in front of them to teach them that this is not your average planted quail. It was so great to see both boys not only get lessons in stop-to-flush, but on the other end of the spectrum also get gradually 'stickier' and even stick some unproductive points close by -- and all in spots you'd be expecting to find grouse huddled up out of the weather. Again, I don't know if I combined my and Dudley's numbers from last year, but I know that this year I saw or heard a lot more birds flush in front of a dog working scent or already on point (as opposed to flushing wild off in the woods at an indeterminate distance) -- which tells me that my dogs are getting better at locating the forest kings even if they're still working out the distances. The other unusual detail was that we seemed to be finding more multiple bird coveys than in the past -- a fair number of pairs, but several threes, and even a couple of fours.

For Jozsi, especially, this was great. However, to go back slightly, the two things I loved about working with him this trip (and admittedly I have an Astro to make this a lot more relaxing) were his handle and his obvious internalization of the work that I, and especially Bill, put into him this summer. Of the 29 definite bird contacts, he had seven stops-to-flush. It might be uncharitable to classify them as such, but I'm calling them stops-to-flush because by the time I got to him, birds were gone. (I'm also counting these as single bird flushes, when they might have been multiples.) But my point is this: I want my dog to run and hunt and when I talk about a handle, it's not because I'm hacking him into constant close range, and so the Astro would beep that he was on point -- and then I'd bushwack 80yds through heavy cover to get to him. I'd get to him, he'd still be standing still, maybe looking up into a tree, maybe tail a little soft, but with all my crashing I may have flushed a bird that was in sitting in front of him and never even heard it. But to have a young dog understand that a bird long-gone is not an excuse to break is awesome -- especially if he knows you can't see him. His final hunt, though, he had got a great reminder of why this is a necessary skill. We were hunting a skidder trail and he cut into a line of cedars about 70yds ahead of me. A bird popped in front of him, and he stood. And as I got closer to him, cursing my way up over the wet slash, two more birds boiled up -- one of which flew across the opening but I was too busy trying to stay upright to take a shot. I fired my blank gun, congratulated him and sent him on. After the initial flush, whether he knew there were two more birds or not doesn't in some sense matter. Standing still has its rewards, too. And as I moved on, too, a fourth bird flushed off my right shoulder. How I was able to swing on that bird and knock it down, I still don't really know.

One of the highlights of the trip was meeting up with Chris Mathan of Strideaway fame who made the three-hour drive to come chase some birds, watch some dogs, and give her young dog, Kit, some exercise. I need to hunt with Chris more often. We set off towards our first set of covers and within 15mins Momo was on point at some cedars. I walked in, a bird flushed, and I released Momo. Spoiler Alert: HANDLER ERROR! And so, of course, he goes off to track the flushed bird, two more pop in the same spot, and I manage to shoot one -- even though I would swear there was a tree in the way. I then holler Momo to retrieve the bird (and hear another pop off in the woods nearby). I was so pleased him with him.

I can't hold my dogs to a higher standard than myself -- especially when I talk about learning curves on wild birds. I had never encountered more than a pair of birds in a single spot -- and never experienced one grouse flush as a decoy for the others -- and it took me one more screw-up to learn this lesson. Another 20mins later, Momo again pointed into a small cedar patch -- and as I walked in, a bird popped. Why I didn't then stop and try to stealth in further with the shotgun ready, who knows! I was still obviously sufficiently jacked up that adrenaline was blocking rational thought. And so, I released Momo again onto a second bird that neither of us was in a position to shoot. But two productive points, six birds, and a bird in hand was still a great start to the day -- especially with a borrowed gun. As you can see from the picture, this is no Birmingham-made side-by-side but a Browning A-5 Light Twenty. I remembered all kinds of things for the trip, but forgot that I'd put all my trigger lock keys on a separate keychain for my trip to Oregon. Happily, Dudley has other guns and I've always had a fascination with the ugly duckling that is the A-5.

It was also a learning experience to be out with Chris + Kit and see how someone handles an FDSB-bred pointer already educated in the world of grouse and woodcock. I don't hunt my dogs with bells because I'm concerned (and have seen proof with Bob and Dennis's dogs) that the birds will spook well in front of a jangling bell. But Astros are illegal in trialing for anything other than locating a dog no longer in contention. And so, a bell is it -- and acute hearing a must, especially when there might be a brace of dogs on the ground. Even with an Astro on, it is still a little nerve-wracking to turn a dog loose in close cover and encourage it to run. And despite being hunted hard for the previous few days, it was great to watch our respective Garmins and see Kit tow Jozsi out to almost 200yards in dense hardwoods and evergreens. The only downside was that we had no bird contacts that we know of for either of them that afternoon. It was great to meet Chris, too, and hear some of her stories about her own life with birddogs. Hope we'll get to do it again soon.

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I can't complain too loudly, but me and two other guys from work were treated to a weekend out at Highland Hills Ranch in north central Oregon. I love Oregon from when I used to live out there and I don't remember how exactly I first heard about HHR, but I was pretty excited to have the opportunity.

I am also a little skeptical about places like this -- skeptical about places that host British-style driven shoots (because they are 'shoots' not 'hunts'), and skeptical about places that claim four species of native birds and no bag limits. Even before they issue you your hunting license, it's obvious that HHR is a preserve and that these are therefore not truly wild birds in the sense of entirely self-sustaining, indigenous populations -- even though pheasant, chukar, Valley quail, and Hungarian partridge are all native to Oregon. As you can see from their website, some of their 3000 acres is pretty manicured terrain. I went imagining I'd shoot a couple of birds quick and then just take photographs. But shortly after we got out the first morning, I had to leave most of my prejudices behind.

Let me get the easy stuff out the way: this is plush. And even though you genuinely hunt pretty hard six hours a day, you're leaving fatter than you came. The facilities are fabulous and the food exquisite. I know that if the chef's parents, his kid's grandparents, didn't live in the area he would have been hired away many many times over. And this is a huge part of the HHR experience: if I remember correctly, the owner's family were five-generation farmers (which shows in not just the cherry orchards, but even how native habitats have been encouraged), and the idea of owning and operating a facility like this comes from love and passion. Dinner conversations about either windfarm operations and the mixed benefits for farmers and residents alike, the cherry crop, or the state of the mule deer population all made it clear that this was an operation being operated for the long haul by folks who genuinely care about the place they've built because their familes have lived there for generations.

As for the bird-stuff: we drove up to the lodge and shooed pheasants off the road in the process. In some ways, not exactly inspiring as to what the actual hunting might be like, but nevertheless a good sign that there are apparently plenty of birds hanging out on the grounds. I did manage to extract that the native birds were supplemented with release birds to ensure that there is consistency in clients' experience -- but I couldn't tell you how or when or in what numbers those birds were being released. And that's because a) it never felt like you were on a put-and-take kind of place, b) because there were none of the usual behaviors of farm-raised game birds, and c) I didn't hear or smell any evidence of ATVs sneaking around dumping birds in fields. I have no idea the actual numbers or distribution schedule, but it became pretty clear that HHR not only manages their terrain really well, but that 'native' might actually mean exactly that for a significant percentage of the birds a client will encounter. The owner expressed genuine surprise at how some of the roosters hadn't fully colored-up yet and speculated they were from a second hatch that year. I might be a sucker, but I believe him. Heaven knows, that in terms of how quickly a pheasant population can establish itself, one need only look at the history of pheasant introduction in OR and WA to see that Oregon, in particular, went from 0 birds in 1881 to a 75-day season in 1892 with an estimated 50,000 birds taken.

At 3,000 acres, there is plenty of space to allow multiple groups to hunt in multiple locations without shooting out the bird populations. As Dario, one of the guys I was with, said -- there were just enough birds. Meaning that they were both plentiful, but neither predictable, nor too many. And heaven knows, we missed our share and they got wilder as a result. There are essentially three different environments at HHR: plateau hunts up on the hills surrounding the ranch in low grass and sagebrush, primarily for Huns and chukar; milo field hunts for all four species of native birds; and creekbed hunts that could feature sagebrush, reeds, and waist-high grasses and, again, all four species. The first two pictures in this post are from our first morning's plateau hunt featuring the fabulous Tex on point, and then Dario, Scott, our guide, and Bailey & Mel (the GSP and the English cocker). This picture is from our milo field hunt -- and features Reuben and Otis (the GSP and the English cocker), cooling off halfway through our hunt.

As can be inferred, many of the guides at HHR use a combination of pointing dogs and flushing dogs to get the birds located, flushed, and retrieved. In this instance, Scott uses a mixed team of pointers and GSPs to locate and pin the birds and then a spaniel to flush the bird. As an aside, for someone used to preparing dogs for hunt tests and field trials, watching the bird flush and then all three dogs break on the shot took a little getting used to -- but as Scott said, if you have a bird that is clearly shot, gliding off the side of a hill, it can put a dog at a serious disadvantage for a blind retrieve if it stands through the shot and waits to be sent. And without wanting to brag too much about our shooting prowess, if all three hunters are able to bag a single bird each from a covey, then it's pretty cool to have three different dogs bring back a bird each. This final picture has my other friend, Ian, shooting a chukar over the lovely Fancy during our final hunt along one of the creekbeds below.

It was a great weekend filled with some miraculous shots (by Ian and Dario, I might add), some enthusiastic dogwork (including watching one of the cockers literally hip-check a GSP out the way to get a bird for the retrieve), good company, and excellent food.