First off let me say it is raining today March 12 2010 so I have time and decided to tell you about my first grouse.
Now I grew up on 80-acre non-working farm 3 ½ miles north of Cass Lake Minnesota on old highway 2. In them days I only passed three houses on my walks to town. Lots of room to roam, with high adventures around every corner. As I past 10 years old moving toward 12 the good smells and secrets kept in the gun storage cabinet behind the woodstove and next to the chimney were off limits because of my quote in maturity. But it was ok for me to have a BB gun, I am sure they (my mom and grandma) thought I couldn’t do much damage with a BB gun. It was a new beautiful pump Daisy and I shot as much as I could with the only limit being a constant need to replenish my supply of BBs. It made a wonderful plunk sound when you hit a tin pop can and was capable of breaking glass bottles, which I found very satisfying. The only other shooting I could do was a supervised sit on my grandma’s back step which over looked our garden with a 20 acre hay field with nothing next to the field except an empty 80. After the first hay was cut and put away you could sit and whistle and the young stripped gophers that made a habit of eating in our garden would stand up and give you a shot. I got pretty good at shooting with the 22 single shot Winchester 67 youth model getting most gophers with one shot. You could shoot 22 shorts, longs and long rifles through that gun, with shorts being the most inexpensive. I have been shopping the internet for a Winchester model 67 22 youth that reminds me of that gun and I started to day dream about that gun all the grouse I shot with it and my first grouse. Opps, I guess I got off the story like I usually do, sorry.
Anyway in those days when the pressure of growing up became to great you could escape by taking a walk in the woodsy pasture out behind the barn. A beautiful open grass area with lots of mature 60’ Norway, White pine and Jack pine trees throw in a few oak and poplar and you found heaven for squirrels, grouse and deer. It was a nice sunny autumn day and I grabbed the Daisy as I went out the door. Walk-sit, walk-sit at the base of a large pine tree with lots of soft pine needles covering where I sat and the woods would literally come alive with animal activity. My escape was coming to an end and I was closing the circle walk, heading back when a grouse flushed up and landed on the bottom branch of a large jack pine tree. Here is my chance I positioned my self for a good shot took careful aim and watched the BB fly through the air and just bounce off the grouse’s chest, a few more shots with BBs bouncing off the bird and I managed to hit something vital knocking the grouse off the branch on to the ground and into it’s final flopping death dance. I removed the bird’s insides right away as I still do today and proceeded home. I was greeted with quite a welcome from my mom and grandma who made a big deal of me bringing something home for the table. There were many years and grouse taken on the ground with that little 22, using the walk six steps, stop and listen for their foot steps in the leaves when you were in a good grousey area. Somewhere along the way I acquired shotguns, good grouse dogs and became a hunter. Thanks for listening.
THG
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Topic: Grouse story (Read 2045 times)
