By Bill Miller
On the invitation of my friends at Winchester, I recently had the chance to hunt in the National Grouse and Woodcock Hunt put on by the Ruffed Grouse Society. Winchester’s Shooting Promotions and Conservation Manager Nathan Robinson and I enjoyed the tremendous RGS hospitality of the RGS’s 31st annual National Hunt in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
To me nothing epitomizes the old saying, “Even the worst day XXXXXXing, beats the best day in the office,” like hunting ruffed grouse and woodcock. What can be better than a walk in the woods on a brisk October day?
The way the RGS event works is that two-man teams of hunters are broken into divisions based on whether you’ve brought your own dogs to hunt over or require a guide with dogs or you elect to hunt without dogs. I would have loved to bring my superstar Callie, but with her at home nursing 10 week-old puppies, there was just no way that was going to happen. And Nathan elected to live his young Brittany at home, too, just because of the hassles and expense it takes to fly a hunting dog these days.
So we entered in the division in which dogs were provided by the guide or “huntsman.” That turned out to be a very good choice because it introduced us to a couple of terrific bird hunters and their wonderful dogs.
Our huntsman for the first day was Paul Jaeger of Hudson, Wisconsin. Paul is an avid grouse and woodcock hunter in both northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. He maintains a small kennel of Gordon Setters and even competes with them. We hunted over a couple of his terrific canine companions — Woody and Popple — in some of Paul’s most secreted hotspots.
The first spot we visited proved the woodcock were definitely in town. In an hour and ten minutes Nathan and I took our two-man limit of six timberdoodles. For Nathan it was his first ever experience with bog bats, and he did himself proud with his Browning over/under 28 gauge. By the time we completed our first loop back to the truck, Paul’s tally was at something more than 30 woodcock flushes.
We spent the rest of the day hard after grouse, but with limited success. We ended the day with nine grouse flushes from which we each managed to take one partridge. That was enough to put us in second place in our division at the end of Day One
Next day dawned clear and cold with Grand Rapids seeing its first of the season temperatures in the teens. Our huntsman for the day was Linda Ordiway – a staff biologist for the Ruffed Grouse Society. She drove all the way from Pennsylvania to participate in the even with her Weimeraner, Rip.
There’s no question Linda knows grouse and woodcock cover when she sees it, but with the colder temperatures the morning began a bit slower. We needed two covers to limit on woodcock on Day Two, but that was more because my shooting skills seem to have iced over during the cold night, too!
We actually found more grouse that day, as well, but I couldn’t hit one for the life of me. Nathan knocked down a bird, and we very much enjoyed learning more about the birds and their habitat from Dr. Ordiway.
With puppy-sitting duty awaiting me at home, I had to roll out of Grand Rapids right away, but Nathan stayed for the closing banquets and awards. Turns out we ended up in third place in our division, which certainly wasn’t too bad, but the competition meant far less than the chance to once again experience the grouse woods with great people and even better dogs.
