I just spent 4 days hunting in upstate NY (location will remain undisclosed!!)

I hunted my field bred Sringer and my buddy hunted his VHD (breed undisclosed for security reasons LOL)
I have been sworn to secrecy regarding his covers.
we hunted with one dog in morning and the other in afternoon.
we flushed a total of 71 birds; 52 woodcock and 19 grouse. Had probably about 30 re-flushes if you want to add them too.
we killed birds everyday.
we took 17 woodcock and 3 grouse.
cover was really tight and tough in places.
these appeared to be local birds. no heavy concentrations to indicate flight birds but I could be wrong.
awesome week.
I shot my Fox C 20 Ga. RST #8's.

Christ, I have to provide proof of life photos for hunting now?
LOL

Fun trip!! Good for you and your buddy!!

My wife and I spent 10 days in upstate NY at the end of Sept.
Basically toured from Buffalo to Bulrlington VT. It was our first time in NY. Had zero interest in the big Apple, just upstate.
Finger Lakes region, Ithaca, the Adirondacks (Lake Raquette thru Lake Placid), hit Letchworth, Watkins Glen, etc.
What an absolutely beautiful area. Loved the scenery and the people were fantastic. Needless to say, we love it up there. We did a bunch of hikes, etc.
I couldn’t help but think about bird hunting pretty much the entire trip, we were in more than a few areas that had the the bird radar pinging. Awesome part of the country, would love to hunt it someday.

Dustin

There was a saying in the Foreign Policy establishment years ago - "If it's not written up, it didn't happen." The corollary In hunting: "If there are no photos - it's fantasy." Upstate NY is beautiful even for a southerner. But. . proof is in the pudding.

If you have photos but don't know how to post them, I'll send you an email via pm and post for you,

I too just hunted western/upstate NY. I killed three woodcock over two days with a guide. We saw many woodcock and a few grouse but really didn't have many shot opportunities because they were very spooky and in heavy cover. I wore out my legs on the mountains, and I am young-ish. Sounds like you had a great trip!

In the middle 1980s, I was attending a branch campus of the University of Pittsburgh in lovely Bradford, Pennsylvania (just south of the State line). At that time, the drinking age in Pennsy was 21, & New York was 18, making it endlessly attractive to myself & my fellow students there. Driving through that part of the world always had me looking at the surroundings and thinking "gamey". The immense Allegheny National Forrest was on the PA side of the border, New York State had it's own little forest areas as well & all of it looks wonderful in October. So glad to hear that a few good upland options still exist there. But...are guns and hunting still legal in New York State?

What beautiful pictures and your C Fox and dog are first class. Bobby

Brian,
The pictures certainly put it all together!
Karl

So Argo says that "If there are no photos-it's fantasy". On that basis, I assume we can conclude that E.M. Reilly was a retailer, but didn't actually have a large manufacturing business.

It wasn't all that long ago that Dustin and I asked for photos to back up his baseless claims that E.M. Reilly was a fairly large firearms manufacturer that had over 300 gunmaking employees. We got nothing.

I even posted some photos of the Syracuse N.Y. Lefever Arms factory, and an image of employees in the process of building Lefever shotguns.... just to show what actual evidence looks like. We asked for E.M. Reilly factory photos again, and we're accused of being scalawags and other unflattering things.

Nice pics Brian. I guess we can all believe you now...LOL!

Well, I guess it still is. Pictures are hard to argue with.

Thanks Brian - wow.

ust to be plenty of birds, awl over nys...

some favorite spots were in putnam and westchester counties, less than an hour from nyc...

by 2000, birds were mostly gone...

A wet, muddy bird dog is a happy bird dog - and your pup looks very pleased with himself.

From a former upstate NY-er, thanks for the report.