Upland Birds

[lumberjohn]

Hunted 10/11 from noon to six PM. Targeted Grouse and Woodcock. Also saw 4 turkeys. Trusty dog Dusty and I flushed 6 Woodcock and 8 Grouse. My dog is an American Water Spaniel and it is his innaugural season. So far so good. Bagged one Woodcock and missed the rest. Shooting 20 Ga. side by side w/ high brass #7-1/2's. All the Woodcock are in the wet thickets bordering swamps, cover is primarily alder, vibernum and scrub apple trees. The Grouse are in the same type of cover but a little higher up on the drier cover bordering the woodlands.

[livesnorth]

LOL got no turkey's up here in northern Alberta but did ok on ruffies on monday,plus saw 11 nice WT and 2 Moose.Up here the Ruffies like the red willow,with a lil stream to wet  their beak's into,soon when the ground is covered with snw they will move into the poplar's on the willow fringe's.We Use 4-10 single shot,#6 lead,but when hunt sharptail's and ptarmigan we use our 12 ga,semi's as thier feather's get very dense wiith the cold.

[lumberjohn]

Had an incredible day in the Grouse woods sunday 10/17. The birds were everywhere. Must have been the Lord blessed me because it was my birthday. Hunted from 1:00 until 6:00PM and there was a light drizzling rain all day. Dog and I kicked up 8 grouse in the first half hour. I lost count somewhere after a dozen birds. Must have flushed 2 dozen grouse, of which I bagged two. Also flushed around 8 woodcock, all misses. Shooting 20 Ga. side-x-side high brass #6's today. Got in 17 shots altogether. The woodcock were in the very wet stuff bordering swamps and beaver ponds. The grouse were in the woods, mixture of red pine, aspen, wild apples and vibernum mostly. Their crops were full of seeds and bits of apple that they must have been feeding on that fell to the ground. A lot of the birds were flushed from nearby the apple trees.

Opening day of pheasant today, monday 10/18 in southern zone of NY. Went out to state game lands nearby from 6:30-11:00 AM. Drizzling rain made for wet conditions and affected the dogs ability to pick-up scent in the fields I believe. Flushed three pheasants, bagged one nice big rooster. Flushed the second into some other hunters, which they greatly appreciated, third one went out the other side of the hedgerow and I never saw it. Shooting my 12 Ga. Browning BPS pump modified barrel w/ 3" buffered #6's. Also flushed and bagged two woodcock. The first one couldn't handle a direct hit from the load of 6's at 10 yards. It got dusted. Head and breasts evaporated. Nothing but two wings and a tail left. The second bird faired better when I dropped it at 50 yards.

[lumberjohn]

Another good week in the fields and woods of Central NY. Wednesday 10/20 targeted pheasants in the AM for 6 hours and my partner and I flushed 7 and bagged 3. You always hear of this happening but this is the first time I'd seen it. My buddy tripped and stuck his 12 GA. double barrel sidexside in the mud. Plugged one barrel. He then got a long stick and pushed out almost all of the mud, but apparently there was just a little itsy bit of residual left in the barrel. He then decided to blow out the rest by shooting off a shell. I was not aware of what was up when he informed me he was going to shoot off a shot. He pointed the gun down and let fly, then told me what that was all about. I was about 30 yards off and pointed out to him that it looked like he had a clump of debris hanging from the end of his barrel. Turns out that debris was what was left of the end of his gun barrel. The right barrel was a twisted mass of metal. We have all heard it before. If you plug your barrel with mud or snow MAKE SURE!! you clean it out THOUROUGHLY. Even the slightest bit of left over snow or mud is enough to impede the wad from passing through for a fraction of a second and the pressures behind the wad can turn your gun into ten pounds of scrap metal, or worse. Do NOT try to blow it out with a shot shell.

Sunday 10/24 hunted the fields and hedgerows for pheasant in the AM and flushed 3 and bagged one. In the afternoon we hit the hardwoods and swamp edges and were 0/4 on grouse and 2/12 on woodcock.