Many Years ago, while grouse hunting with my two best hunting buddiesboth long gone now, one of them passed way too soon of a heart attack and the other I put down at the ripe age of 12we had a lot of good times afield together.
This one particular cold January day we had been chasing spooky southern Ontario grouse most of the afternoon with little luck, the birds were in deep cedar cover and hard to get a shot at despite the good dog work, old Diamond would lock-up head high a few yards downwind of the cedars and look up front sort of telling us there it is guys, go get it, we tried every approach that day, but nothing worked, they either flushed out of sight or out of rangeneedless to say we never touched a feather.
Now the old dog loved to hunt hard and could always tell when we were done.the moment he sensed I was heading for the truck he would try to lure me back to the woods by going on point, he knew once I heard the beeper I would turn around and go to him, it was a game and more often than not once I go to him, I would tap the back of his head, he would move on and start to search againthats when I would leash him up and call it a day.
Well, on that particular day, after a dozen or so productive points and nothing to show for we decided to call it quitswe walked out of the woods with the dog up front, as we go closer to the truck we walked through this one open meadow, snow on the ground and no cover except a small dead log right in the middle of it, all of a sudden the dog makes a hard left, bolts for the log and locks up on point, knowing the history of his behavior and that of the birds on that day we looked at each other and said No Way.hes just playing gamesgo get him and leash him up my friend says, its miller time.I walk to the dog, leash on hand, gun broke on the shoulder, get within six feet of the dog and a grouse busts clean open out from under the log, could have hit him with a tennis racquet if I had oneI dont think the dog ever forgave us for what happened that day, and from then on I always made sure I was gun ready as opposed to leash readyand it often paid off, so much so that I had a name for it, I used to call it the go home bird....of all my dogs he was the only one who did that, funny as hell now that I think of it.
All best,
CJ
