The weather isn’t going to cooperate forever (in fact, the remnants of Noel are supposed to scream through tomorrow), so we went back north to the covers today.

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I hunted Boone for just a short time – turned him loose in a pocket cover with Dinah. He goes to it with a will, but when we circled back to the truck after 15 minutes, his legs were shaking. I sat down on the ground next to him and we just relaxed for a bit.

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Tamarack (aka The Larch per Python, Monty)

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Janey was wonderful. She can be frustrating – she’s field trial stock and wants to range too far for the kind of covers we hunt. If she doesn’t find birds as quickly as she thinks she should, her urge to range and self hunt grows – thus the e-collar she always wears. But, and it’s a big but, what a nose! What staunchness! She’s one of those dogs that will not release from point if you haven’t flushed the bird she knows is there. If I go in and tell her “OK” and she doesn’t move, I know I need to kick around a bit more – and be ready. She ran one big cover for an hour and a half today. Her final flourish, as we got back to the truck, was to lock up on a bird. I was 150 feet away – not too bad – it was reasonably open – and as I started towards her, a grouse went up to my left (Janey was at 2 o’clock). “Oh, crap”, said I, “the bird must have run.” She didn’t move. I kept walking towards her and a second grouse went up right where she indicated. As I swung on the grouse, I heard a woodcock go up – Janey had managed to line on the 2 birds and not bump either. I never saw the woodcock – only heard it – but I did see the grouse (yum).

The cover, just before it opened up for Janey’s last find (those aspen/poplar/popple are about 1 1/2″ in diameter and 1′ to 3′ apart):

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Dinah has come a long way in two working days. When she first hit the ground Wednesday, she was working on defining “gamboling”. By her second cover today, she was moving pretty smoothly, using her nose (she’s not sure exactly what smell is the most important, but she know it’s one of those scents) and when she bumped her last woodcock, she spun and threw a flash point. I love watching a puppy figure out birds – there’s a fit there that is sublime – the world’s best key clicking into a damn fine lock. Not to get too full of myself – let’s end on a lighter note. There are a lot of moose in the woods where we hunt. You’ll never confuse their droppings with deer turds…