60 hours afield
82 flushes
2 grouse harvested
Flush rate of 1.4 per hour, down from 1.7 last season.
Mind you that half of the recorded flushes were only heard, never seen and half the birds seen were bumped by the pup who still has a fair amount of chase in him. I'm operating under the guise that 2 for 20 isn't to awful, pretty much par for the course as far as grouse hunting goes in my neck of the woods. Right in line with something I once read in a Spiller book, which softens the blow a little bit.
Cedar's first season involved a good amount of wild bird contact and he learned a few priceless lessons in regard to "ol Ruff.
Sad to say I had similar results. And I was shooting over a well seasoned dog. My excuse; I elected to carry my seldom used 28g. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful dog.
Many people would disagree, but in my experience the hardest upland bird to hit is a ruffed grouse. Some are faster, some smaller; a ruffie just seems to know how to get results.
ReplyDeleteLove the name Cedar, by the way.
As long as you had fun kill totals don't matter, at least that's what I tell myself. I didn't kill a single grouse this year but had a lot of fun trying. Didn't shoot at any wild flushes, missed 3 that Emma managed to point, but did kill a woodcock over an Emma point that I can still see falling from the sky. Give Cedar an ear scratch from me.
ReplyDelete60 hours afield with your pup sounds like a winning season to me!
ReplyDeleteDave, great to see the stats, that's a pretty average harvest rate for this area. sounds like you got out a fair number of times. congrats on a good season.
ReplyDeletejt