A Grouse Hunter’s Almanac: The Other Kind of Hunting

The Mythical Bird

110 The Mythical Bird We were trudging back toward my truck after a long, slow day of hunting on state-owned land in Langlade County. Grouse were at the bottom of their cycle that year, and we had not seen a bird all morning after four hours of hunting and miles of walking. In a good year when grouse are at the peak of their cycle, I would encounter as many as two dozen birds in the land we had just covered. I have hunted this area for years, dozens of times, and walking the familiar logging roads and trails I saw the points, flushes, and shots of all the preceding autumns. In my mind birds flushed in astonishing numbers, the years layered over each other like the lacquer on a fine piece of furniture. When we got back to the parking lot, we ran into a DNR biologist . He asked how we did, looking at my empty game bag. I told him we got skunked. “Did you see any?” “Not a one. Zippo. Nada.” “It sure is a bad year,” he said, petting the dog. “He looks like he had fun, though.” 111 “He always does, birds or no birds.” Unlike the dog, I need at least one bird to keep me going. Faith, belief, hope, call it what you will, but I will hike for two or three hours knowing a grouse lies at the end of the trek. It’s not that I need to kill something to leave the woods satisfied, because in the peak years I have come home empty-handed due to my inept shooting, poor dog work, or sometimes just plain bad luck. Sometimes the birds just don’t cooperate, which is good for them. That morning in Langlade County, though, it felt as though we were hunting in a desert. Where were all the birds? What causes them to die off so suddenly? And most important, would they come back? I couldn’t imagine or face an October without a ruffed grouse flushing, a sound so distinct once heard. That day, and others like it, gave rise to the phrase “the mythical bird,” which is that one last bird you wish you would see before quitting for the day. Webster’s first definition of mythical concerns something that exists in mythology, like the phoenix rising from the ashes; Raven, so prevalent in Native American stories; or Hugin and Munin, the ravens that serve as Odin’s spies in Norse mythology. The mythical bird I’m referring to corresponds to the second definition, the bird imagined or invented. It’s the bird willed into existence at the end of a long day when grouse seem as scarce as woodcock teeth or when a hunter can’t seem to hit a pumpkin in a tree ten yards away and wants just one more chance. The mythical bird by definition comes at the end of a hunt, at times when the shotgun is unloaded and cased and the dog kenneled. It materializes just when I have stopped hunting and am beginning to think of things other than the hunt. The Mythical Bird 112 Most days the mythical bird remains mythical, but occasionally one materializes out of thin air, or thin cover as it were, and this occurs often enough to keep the hope simmering that I can mentally produce such a thing just by wishing for it. When it happens I feel like I could levitate or change stones into gold. In reality it’s all blind luck, the happenstance of two lines intersecting: that of the hunter and that of the grouse. If I happen to shoot a grouse, the serendipity is all mine. For the mythical bird, the grouse at the wrong place at the wrong time, it’s bad karma, fat chance, destiny. Usually I wish for the mythical bird in the lean years, when the birds are at the bottom of the cycle or I haven’t seen a bird for hours, and I want to remember the thrill of a flush or just know ruffed grouse still exist. But the mythical bird just happens. Like any flush, it’s beyond our control. Occasionally, though, the mythical bird crops up on a day when birds are plentiful, when he’s welcome but not really necessary. The last one I remember occurred recently during a year...