Guiding David and Paul from Oregon 10/12/2009

My friend and NAVHDA buddy Dean and his outstanding Viszla Reuben accompanied my GSP Bruno and me on a five-hour ruffed grouse and woodcock hunt during which we guided our NAVHDA guests David and Paul from Oregon. Both David and Paul are retired but experienced and very active bird hunters and bird dog enthusiasts. David is in charge of the NAVHDA dog training in Oregon and owns two awesome GSPs that he uses regularly to hunt chukars. Dean asked if we could take these gents to some of my favorite coverts near my cabin in NE Lower Michigan, and I agreed without hesitation.

During our first brief stop in Otsego County, we put up only two woodcock, but they were in a thick tag alder/cedar swamp and no one fired a shot.

Our second stop was to a large, moist aspen stand in Montmorency County, which in previous years had always been productive for both grouse and woodcock. It didn't disappoint our guests as both our dogs put them on grouse and woodcock, but being first time hunters of ruffed grouse and woodcock, they fired but failed to connect. The fun had certainly begun, and both David and Paul beamed smiles as broad as our northern woods.

Our last stop was at my all-time favorite secret covert in Cheboygan County, and, well, I certainly saved the best place for last. Both Reuben and Bruno were pointing birds everywhere--once even simultaneously almost side-by-side on two different birds--a mixed double--a grouse and a woodcock. I'd have given a thousand bucks to have had my video recorder in hand to capture that scene! We all connected on birds in this stand and left feeling happily satisfied with our hard-day's effort and great pointing and retrieving performances by Reuben and Bruno (who injured/slashed his left front paw near the end of our last hunt).

In all, Reuben and Bruno pointed 23 ruffed grouse and woodcock in just five hours of hunting (no double-counting birds in this tally), and we bagged five birds--2 grouse and three woodcock. I think David and Paul are perplexed by the flight of escaping woodcock. I assured our Oregonian guests that they certainly are not alone in holding that belief. We all enjoyed one another's company and a great hunt togther. Great Lakes, great woods, great upland bird hunts are here to enjoy in Pure Michigan! So grab you bird dog, shotgun, and shells and c'mon Up North this fall!

Ruffed Grouse and Woodcock Hunting in Northern Michigan

My wife, hunting partner, and camera/videowoman Christine, my GSP Bruno, and I checked out some promising-looking grouse and woodcock habitat in Antrim County.
We found lots of ruffed grouse and deer but surprisingly no woodcock. We frequently returned to this habitat throughout the Fall 2009 hunting season, and it faithfully produced ruffed grouse on every visit. We are surprised we have not experienced meeting other bird hunters in this great habitat area.

Lake Michigan Retrieving Training

Here Bruno and I are at our favorite, secret Lake Michigan shoreline in Leelanau County practicing multiple water retrieves on dummies I typically throw or launch 40-60 yards into Lake Michigan. Today was a calm day with virtually no waves, but in August, conditions were much different.

My wife Christine, a woman who was German Shorthaired Pointer breeder from the Lansing area and her two male GSPs, my GSP Bruno, and I all visited this very same site on the hot August evening after our day-long Northern Michigan Chapter NAVHDA dog tests. Bruno didn't compete in the tests because I had volunteered this day to assist with the Natural Ability Tests and to grill burgers and dogs for lunch. However, this Lansing woman and her two GSPs did test today, and afterward they asked Christine and me if we'd bring them to a pleasant Lake Michigan beach where they could go swimming and cool down. Why not? It had been a very hot day, and swimming in Lake Michigan sounded refreshing!

So naturally, I brought along my retrieving dummies and launchers, but I was somewhat concerned because a strong onshore breeze had picked up since late afternoon and was now generating two-feet-high rollers. This lady from Lansing, being unfamiliar with the perils present, almost immediately launched one of the retrieving balls 60+ yards into the lake and tried to get her two male GSPs to retrieve the ball, but her dogs wouldn't retrieve the ball for they couldn't see it--the ball was well hidden in the water-surface layer and by the action of the two-foot-high rollers.

"Great!" I thought to myself. "I don't want to loose that ball," I grimmaced silently knowing that finding a perfectly-fitting replacement ball for my launcher would be a challenge. So I asked the Lansing lady to call her dogs to her side, while I prepared to send my GSP Bruno on this very challenging blind retrieve. By now the sun had set, and the light was diminishing quickly. I commanded Bruno to heel, squared my shoulders perpendicular to the direction I wanted to send him on this retrieve, and ordered him to fetch while simultaneously motioning with my right hand and arm the direction I wanted him to proceed. All summer long I trained Bruno to go on multiple and blind retrieves in similar manner, but that training had usually been conducted on land, and the few times we practiced wet retrieves, they had been done on small and always calm inland lakes and ponds. Conditions here was seriously and significantly different. After Bruno had swum out from shore 40 yards precisely along the line I had sent him, I whistled for him to whoa and to look at me for new directions, for the waves had moved the ball to a new location, and I needed to adjust the direction he was swimming. He complied perfectly, and with my hand-and-arm motions I redirected him to swim in a more south-easterly direction. All of this was much more challenging than it sounds, for we would regularly loose eye sight of one another in the cresting and ebbing action of the two-foot Lake Michigan rollers. After Bruno had swum another 25 yards to the SE, I shouted excitedly to alert him that he was near and getting close to the ball, "Right there! Right there!" And as trained, he began to alertly search for the ball in the surface film of the rollers.

"Bingo! He's got it!" I excitedly announced to a concerned Christine and Lansing lady. Bruno turned and swam 60+ yards with the rollers back to the shore, climbed out and gently placed the ball in my outreached right hand. "Good boy!" I told him proudly. That was certainly an understated compliment on my part.

The Lansing lady swiftly turned and said to her two GSP male dogs, who were sitting onshore beside her and watching with her Bruno's superb long blind retrieve, "Now boys, that's the way you retrieve!"

Well said Lansing lady, and well done, Bruno.

Woodcock Banding, Flyfishing, and Camping at Big Bay, MI

Scenic Big Bay is located a half-hour's drive NW of Marquette in Michigan's rugged Upper Peninsula. It was a favorite hangout for Henry Ford and his auto executives and also the setting for the 1959 American courtroom crime drama film Anatomy of a Murder, which was directed and produced by Otto Preminger and in which starred James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, George C. Scott, Arthur O'Connell, and Eve Arden. The film is based on the best-selling book having the same title that was written by Robert Traver, whose real-life yooper name was John D. Voelker, a retired Michigan Supreme Court Justice, former yooper district attorney, and passionate flyfisher who also penned Trout Madness and Trout Magic. Voelker based this book on an actual murder case for which he was the defense attorney. If you haven't seen the film or read any of these three books by Voelker, I highly encourage you to do so for Voelker writes splendid stories that are packed with as colorful characters from Michigan's U.P. as the region's geographic names are: Yellow Dog Plains, River, and Falls; Hairpin, Halfway Location, Squaw Beach, Big Eric's Bridge, Salmon Trout River and Bay, Hiawatha Water Trail, 40 Foot Falls, Big Pup and Little Pup Creeks, Lost Creek, Blind M35, Dodge City, Gold Mine Road, Dead River Bridge, Big Garlic River, Bulldog and Stag Lakes, Brown Deer Road, Pinnacle Falls, and Bushy Creek Truck Trail (WARNING: one better have a very good 4x4 truck, extra tires and radiators, jacks, shovels, winches and/or come-alongs and a good map to travel on certain parts of this bitchy trail). Several of the movie's scenes were filmed in Big Bay at the Thunder Bay Inn, the Lumberjack Tavern, which was the actual 1952 murder site on which much of Voelker's book is based, and Perkins Park, where the very last scenes of the movie occur. If you've seen the film and decide to visit Big Bay, you will recognize the Lumberjack Tavern and Perkins Park, but much of the original Thunder Bay Inn has been renovated to its original splendor and today offers fantastically-delicious menus and quaintly comfortable, cozy rooms for its guests.

My wife Christine invited me to accompany her to her second Becoming an Outdoor Woman(BOW)action-packed outdoor weekend. This year's BOW weekend was to take place in Big Bay in early June, and Christine was eagerly looking forward to attending it and seeing her outdoor womanfriends again. These BOW weekends and events are sponsored by Michigan's DNR and offer training in various outdoor skills and activities from experienced outdoor women instructors. I readily accepted my wife's invitation and decided that I'd take my GSP Bruno along for I knew from previous experience that there was a catch: Men are NOT allowed to stay at the the women's BOW park or to participate in their scheduled classes and events, such as flyfishing, kayaking, canoeing, GPS orienteering and map reading, trap shooting and archery. "Oh, c'mon ladies, can't you make exceptions for Bruno and me?" "Defintely not!" they responded. Oh, well, I guess Bruno and I will enjoy a men's weekend together woodcock banding in the regions's vast forests and wilderness areas and camping happily at Perkins Park on Lake Independence in Big Bay. Huh, we men shall have some fun outdoors, too!

And did we ever--all of us did! We spent a fantastic weekend of adventure exploring the local wilderness areas, forests, waterfalls, and amazingly gorgeous Lake Superior shorelines, prospecting and flyfishing for trout in the local streams, viewing all sorts of wildlife: cow moose with calves, wolves, deer with fawns, black bear, foxes, bald eagles and various other accipitors, ruffed grouse and sharp-tailed grouse, loads of Canada geese, ducks, and loons, plus bountiful, beautiful brook trout. But, alas, no woodcock! The forests were horribly dry for the region hadn't received any rain or snow in four weeks. Bruno and I searched in vain promising-looking woodcock nesting habitats, but locals told me that the woodcock were likely hugging the riverbanks further south where the forests were wetter.

The nighttime temperatures at Perkins Park dipped into the mid-thirties, but Bruno and I cuddled together to keep one another warm. We happily shared a male-bonding weekend together as did Christine with her female friends.

Michigan's Upper Peninsula may seem like a world and years away for many of you, but for us northern Michiganians, the U.P. is our paradise nearest heaven. Come visit Pure Michigan's Pure U.P. and while you're here, be sure to try our local pasties!

Woodcock Banding, Spring 2009

Please click on this photo to see an enlarged view of a woodcock chick that is from a brood of three chicks I banded in May 2009. The chick is attempting to flee after being released from my nylon mesh holding bag to its nearby mother who is calling to them. I regathered the three banded chicks, placed them under my hat for a while to calm them down, then released them calmed, unharmed and together to their mother who reclaimed them minutes after my departure. Their average bill length was 40 mm, which indicates that they are 13 days old and will begin to fly within a few days. Little wonder they were so energetic upon their initial release from my holding bag! Cute little buggers, aren't they?

Winter Wonder Dog

I love this photo of Bruno. He loves snow as much as I do!