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

The Last Day of the Season

213 The Last Day of the Season The snow lay two feet deep and we hadn’t hunted in over a month. We were rusty, not having hunted much since the gun deer season in mid-November, but we had an itch to get out on this the last day of the season. I strapped on snowshoes, called Ox, and left the cabin, slogging through the powder down to a couple of likely spots. Earlier in the year we had spooked a half dozen birds from one of these places, a deep pothole where aspen grow. We encountered no birds in the first cutting we worked through, not even the hint of a track in the snow. Deer tracks crisscrossed the snow, as did a pair of wolf tracks. The Seeley Highlands pack roams the area, and the wolves often cross to the southeast of our cabin. I stopped and examined the tracks until the dog came up and ran over the top of them. After working the first spot, the snow was so taxing that instead of bushwhacking we cut down to a snowmobile trail and used the packed surface to get to the next place. We tried that at first, but after I fell twice in the deep snow, flailing about like a turtle on its shell, 214 the snowmobile trail looked more appealing even if we did run into a sled or two. The second time I fell, it took me several minutes to right myself in all of the powder. It was as if I’d been caught in an avalanche, and I had to remove my snowshoes to get up. After finally getting back on my feet and cleaning the snow out of my gun barrels, we managed to get to the snowmobile trail and eventually struggle down into the pothole. We cut grouse tracks all over the cover but didn’t flush a single bird. Ox didn’t seem to mind, however. He was just glad to get out, stopping every so often to bite out the snow jammed in his paws. He was panting hard with all the effort but clearly on a lark and enjoying himself. From the pothole cover, we continued north toward a ski trail, which we used to get back to our cabin. I’d had enough of the deep snow. My legs were cramping from lifting the snowshoes on my feet high enough to clear the snow on every step. Out on the trail, the dog once again dropped down on all fours and began chewing the ice out of his paws. I stopped to help him clear the ice so he could walk without pain. We made it back to the cabin twenty minutes later, birdless but happy, wrapping up another season. Although the DNR regulations state that grouse season begins the third Saturday of September and ends on January 31 in the northern part of the state, the season really doesn’t have clearly defined edges, not like the gun deer season, which runs just nine days. It doesn’t have the opening-day hype of either the fishing season or the waterfowl season. It builds slowly through late September and doesn’t hit full stride until October. We hunt the most from October until the beginning of the gun deer season. According to my journals, Late Season 215 I shoot over 80 percent of my birds in this six- or seven-week period, hunting only sporadically before and after this time. You could say the season starts and ends with a fizzle. In September the heat, humidity, and heavy foliage limit my hunting. With a young dog that needs training and experience, we get out more, but less so with older, more seasoned dogs that don’t need the experience. At the tag end of the season, snow cover limits my mobility and hunting. There have been years of little December snow, and we have hunted sporadically through the month. For a while I made a point of getting out around Christmas to try to shoot a bird for grouse pie on Christmas Day, our traditional dish. After a string of several bad, nearly snowless winters, the brown landscape and a longer season started to feel normal. But the last few years have brought more snow. This past Christmas , we had more on the ground (eighteen to twenty inches) than we have...