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Nicely done!! She could double has Hank's sister! Great looking dog.

nice and great looking dog

do you run her with an e collar?

how did she tear up feet running in forest and logging roads? Curious

Grouse pops seem to be good in the west

Thanks for the comments!

No e collar, I'm too much of a softy. We did most of our hunting at the edge of alpine and there is a lot of rock up there. I was surprised her feet were so beat up, we had hiked the full loop of this trail several times over the summer with out any issues. She's in heat now so plenty of time to heal up.

Sage grouse season is winding down.. Tomorrow is the last day.. No birds tonight, rain ruined the evening hunt.. Yesterday we found two coveys and scored in each one.. IF This could last forever!!

Those are some happy dogs! Nice work WCH!

WCH- Nicely done!!

Owen and I connected with sagehen this weekend and had a good shoot. Rosie wore her pads down and had to call it a day; it was good we limited out.

Excellent.. A great time.. Good dog, good guns and family, you have it all ... Enjoy!!

Nice

Btw Rosie is a silly name for a Griff

She's a silly griff.

my rosie is too but she is all business when i take out my gun

We made short hunt last week and managed two blue grouse.. First for my model 12 12ga. solid rib... 1 1/8 oz of 6's.. Maggie is checking them out again for about the 10th time...

Posted this in the workout thread, but some may find it worthy of the Upland forum:


Been away on a Grouse hunting trip to Michigan. Miss timed the weather and it was hot and to push all day would have crashed the Dogs and us, so the hunting consisted of 3hours early AM and 2 hours before dark. A Good many Birds flushed, but mainly Woodcock which we didn't shoot at except occasionally to reward the Dog for good work. Other than that little shooting.

It was like still hunting, but with little resemblance to Tai Chi. In the middle of the day at best it would have been sauna Tai Chi.

However, all in all, it was an eventful trip. Didn't leave with the expectation of meeting a couple hot nurses that wanted to mess around with my head.

Hope you didn't hurt that SxS when you fell. BTW-- Chicks dig scars.


got to love photos of dogs & birds---keep them coming.

A look at the covers:








Lunch on the tailgate:

OUCH!!!! WOW!!

So Glad ya' made it back alive from Da' UP, Battue !! Just back from three days on the Central UP ourselves. One hunter plus one FBECS; both Seasoned Citizens. Hunted grousey areas of Dickensen, Iron and Marquette counties. HOT, too hot for the 3rd week of Oct; no killing frosts yet either. Hardly any leaf fall and very muted colors too. Leaf peepers were NOT happy!

Hunted mornings only and managed a couple of grouse. Flush rates dismal, only sightly better than one flush per hour. Grouse population appears to be way down from the peaks of around the years 2000 and 2010. Drove many miles through good grouse country and saw only ONE (1) road bird in three days; and that's a tell in my world. Hard to remember a worse year for grouse hunting. The only Good News is that we were not skunked!!

(I will read the WO thread to see what the heck happened!!)

Nat,

We roamed some of the same counties and like you because of the heat we hunted mornings and the last couple hours of daylight. Between times we drove around looking for spots. For 5 days, a good average would have been 10 Grouse flushes per day and 15 Woodcock. The Grouse were mainly singles with few exceptions and most were found around some good pine tree roosting trees. I only shot at three and it was a very late hatch Bird. I mean it was tiny and hardly had any head feathering. Melot had to run it down after it hit the ground and he took out the tailfeathers. It would have been interesting to have seen how short they were. The locals said it was a horrible extended wet spring. BTW, ran into some very nice individuals.

Had four Dogs, Merlot the Cocker, two Setters and a Pointer. While not a numbers hunt, the Dogs got into enough Birds to further their education. Merlot started going to his Birds more head up when the scent was hot. The last Bird of the trip he picked up the scent at around 20yards on the edge of a cedar trickle run. His head snapped around and he took the Bird out on a run. That was the Bird I wish I could have killed. Merlot was on the ground for the better part of each days hunt and by the end of day 5 he crashed. The little guy has some stamina and the heat obviously didn't do him any favors.

As far as road Birds, we did bump into perhaps 6 driving in and out for the evening hunts.

Pics or they were ugly as home-made sin.

"Smokin' Hot"

The girls all look prettier at closing time!