Essence: Searching for the Heart of the Game

Hunting & Heritage | 10/14/2022

Essence: Searching for the Heart of the Game

Photo by Jess Warner

Five Stories on a Favorite Gamebird

How do you distill the essence of hunting a gamebird into words? You could write a book. Or you could get at the core of it in, say, 500 spare, stingy words. We gave five of our best writers that challenge for a favorite gamebird of their choice. Here’s what they had to say.

Click a bird and enjoy.

Of Panorama and Place

By Andrew McKean

I’m only slightly red-faced to admit that the first few sage grouse I shot were bushwhacked along or even on remote dirt or gravel roads in desolate eastern Montana as I was headed somewhere else.

That’s how much I remember of the encounters. But I was hardly alone in looking beyond sage grouse. For years, I didn’t know anybody who intentionally hunted the birds for more than opening day, or maybe one more time before deer season. Most encounters were unexpected bonuses of a drive out in the BLM country.

That they weren’t considered trophy birds derives from the sense that these “bombers,” as my eastern Montana neighbors call sage grouse, are twice as easy to kill as pheasants and taste less than half as good. But my view of “chickens,” as an earlier generation of neighbors called the birds they saw every day, changed as grouse became scarcer and as I got more questions from serious bird-hunting buddies elsewhere about where the birds lived and how to hunt them.

Almost as a matter of professional obligation, I started leaving the two-tracks and hiking the prairie with my duck dog and my shotgun, trying to learn where these big, clumsy birds might be and how they behaved when there wasn’t a pickup barreling down on them.

Early on I was mostly a deer hunter, and I used these grouse expeditions to scout for muley bucks and find weathered shed antlers as much as I did to find birds. But over the years, I’ve come to anticipate opening day of grouse season almost as much as the deer opener.

remain a shabby upland hunter. I still hunt sage grouse with panting Labs that overheat under the September sun. I am as likely to carry my pump gun as a quick-pointing side-by-side.

But if time is a teacher, then I’ve accumulated some lessons in sage grouse hunting that I hope settle accounts depleted in my first years of drive-by opportunism.

I learned that unless you’re getting swarmed by mosquitoes, you’re not really hunting early season sage grouse. I learned to tell the difference in my dog’s surging certainty of a running bird versus her cautious indecision when she comes on a coiled rattlesnake. I learned, after seeing my buddies’ dogs get hit by sage-flat rattlers, those places to avoid until after a hard frost. I learned to pack more water than you think you need, along with good pliers. I learned how to wrap my resistant dog in my jacket to pull porcupine quills from her muzzle.

I learned to keep track of tiny features on the treeless horizon, because it’s easier to get turned and lost around here, in the sameseeming prairie where sage grouse live, than in any wilderness mountain range.

I learned to watch the grassless ground for scat, and to slide my finger to my shotgun’s safety when the commas of grouse shit turned from chalk-white to avocado. I learned to push into stands of wrist-thick sagebrush on sunny afternoons, their canopies shading coveys that always remain out of sight until the entire prairie levitates, unexpectedly black with birds against the khaki earth and the blindingly blue sky.

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I learned to read the wind, always blowing in sage grouse country, to time my shot for that stalled second as the birds transition from flush to flight, and then to triple my lead for a following shot, to catch birds with the prairie wind in their widening wings.

After shooting behind most of those wind-quickened birds, I learned to not waste my first crack on a spastic reaction to the unexpected moment, but to wait for the second flush, of singles and pairs of juvenile chickens, both easier to hit in the air and tastier on the plate than the strong-flying, sage-tasting bombers.

I am learning to savor each flush of grouse, because if early on I overlooked them as prairie commoners, I now encounter them less frequently, and in some places where I used to find them, not at all.

But mainly I learned to slow down, to choose my circuit wisely, these miles-long loops that start upwind along some nameless prairie wash, cross over a low ridge, and back down a neighboring drainage, public land as far as I can walk. I learned to revel in my puniness beneath that appallingly big sky, while simultaneously watching out for ankle-turning rocks, teepee rings and prickly pear.

Later, I learned that the birds are never on the ridges, but always near the bottom of the prairie, whether it’s a dry streambed or a hanging sagebrush basin between rimrocks that smell of snakes.

I learned to find hand-sized stone skinning blades laid out in plain sight on the cracked ground, and to inspect every gumbo cutbank for a shattered buffalo skull.

Over years and decades, I’ve been slow to learn that the essence of sage grouse hunting isn’t the birds but the place, this immense imperfect panorama of scraggly shrubs and glacial erratics whose flat horizon equally divides earth from sky. Along the way, that’s how I’ve come to understand sage grouse too.

Andrew McKean is lucky enough to live where sage grouse do in eastern Montana, where he also can see the habitat challenges afoot in sage grouse country.

Woodsmoke, Wandering and Wondering

By Michael L. Neiduski

When I think of woodcock, a campfire in the shadow of Burke Mountain, Vermont comes to mind.

The hot coals glow, and their smoke merges with the fog of a late October morning, a fog that permeates the figures gathered on restless feet around the circle of stones. The smell of bacon grease cuts the haze as if its addition to cast iron was the defrost button everyone needed to dissipate the long night past.

But it’s not the smell we gather for. It’s the meal. The bacon grease is only a small seasoning for the meat of the birds sizzling and popping in the pan.

Woodcock are cool little birds. I can’t think of a more simple and succinct way to say it, and I’ve been accused of saying it too often. But it’s true.

Woodcock are sometimes maligned, with a history ranging from delicacy to trash to the people’s bird, that last one a nod to their accessibility in the eastern states where aspiring and active bird hunters face limited opportunity for other species.

At first glance, their behavior matches their looks. Plain and simple, woodcock epitomize quirky.

They are unashamed to go their own way on toothpick-thin legs with backwards knees, moving and grooving ever forward. Get one in hand though, and that quirkiness leaves an imprint. The long bill, the saucer-sized eyes placed far out on the edges of the head to see almost 360 degrees, and the mottled browns and blacks and magical russets and translucent blue-grays of the feathers.

I’ve caught myself marveling at this bird splayed out in my hand, smoothing its feathers and wiping away the dog slobber, more than any other bird brought back. Small but mighty beauties.

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Their mythology ranges from an Indigenous peoples’ belief that woodcock were made of the sum of leftover parts by the creator, while others will tell you that the three black bars on a woodcock’s head serve as an imprint of the fingers of God, a mark of ordination lost in today’s race to argue what’s best, especially amongst upland birds.

But to the folks around that campfire, there is reverence mixed in with that woodsmoke and fog. They stand ready for communion, plates heaped with potatoes, peppers, onions and eggs, waiting for the pieces and parts of yesterday’s memories to top their plate.

One of those birds is from the homestead cover. The woodcock knuckleballed skyward just on the other side of the decaying foundation before the apple trees came into play. The old dog stuck it after being bested most of the day by the puppy and the sun showed bright on her graying muzzle as the long beak lolled back and forth on the retrieve.

That’s enough seasoning of memory to slowly savor every bite.

But like any good ingredient, the depth of flavor on memory here is much more robust. That gray-faced dog sleeping in the back of the truck first encountered the popcorn flush of the longbill as a pup just outside St. Louis. It’s hard to believe she’s pinned them from there to the Upper Midwest to the Northeast to the Deep South since.

To know something, you have to know where it lives. That’s a laundry list with woodcock, a list with a lot of checked boxes thanks to that old dog. And if you know doodles like she does, you know they are where you find them, until you don’t.

Ephemeral, an apt word for memories and meals and woodcock, these birds move and shift and dance in the brain over time. One minute the birds are packed into a cover so thick that the only way to get the dog out is on a leash, and the next day there’s not a bird to be found.

That’s the essence of it all, of chasing timberdoodles. They are there to be enjoyed, cherished, savored … and then gone in an instant, rising into the ether like that campfire smoke and catching the wind to somewhere else.

It is late October in the Northwoods and who knows what came and went in last night’s rain.

But what I have come to know, as have those standing around that timberdoodle breakfast cast-iron campfire, is this: It’s not the bird we seek out on those walks in lonely young woods, but what we want for ourselves. Sometimes it’s right there in front of us right out of the gate. Other times it’s wandering and wondering in fervent search.

October comes and goes, as do these cool little birds on the wind, and we’ll be there every chance we can for smoky reminders of birds and dogs and time in the woods that makes us whole again.

Michael L. Neiduski wanders woodcock country like woodsmoke, probing corners near and far in communion with the coverts, a bird dog and these special little birds.

Mountains of Challenge

By E. Donnall Thomas Jr.

Asked to summarize the essence of Mearns’ quail hunting in one word, my answer would come easily: challenge. Despite the common tendency to equate toughness with size, these little guys can take the fight to any combination of hunter and bird dog.

As usual, the story begins with habitat.

In contrast to the “desert” quail (Gambel’s and scaled) with which they share their range in our arid Southwest, Mearns’ inhabit mountainous terrain, usually at elevations from 3 to 5,000 feet with a grassy understory and a live oak canopy.

The sidehills are steep, and dogs always seem to go on point uphill. The footing usually consists of loose, unstable rock. Since falls are frequent, leave expensive shotguns behind. While birds sometimes wind up on level canyon bottoms as they feed downhill during the day, other hunters usually arrive first in the easy cover. I’m glad to concede it, for if I’m not panting, sweating, slipping and sliding, I don’t feel that I’m really hunting Mearns’.

The second habitat feature contributing to the Mearns’ quail challenge arises from those live oaks. The exact biological relationship between the quail and these distinctive trees is complex and has multiple factors, but the strength of the association is striking. When scouting, my rule of thumb is, “No live oaks, no Mearns’.” What live oaks’ nearly inevitable presence means to the hunter is the difficulty of tracking the erratic flight path of flushed birds and the need to shoot around obstructions, in contrast to the open shooting found in most desert quail habitat.

Among their many popular names (Montezuma quail is correct), lies one of the great misnomers in upland bird hunting: fool quail. The term derives from Mearns’ tendency to rely on camouflage and let predators, including hunters, walk right into a covey before they reveal their presence by flushing.

Photo by Gary Kramer

What that derogatory term ignores is the countless coveys one walks right past unaware — without the services of a capable dog.

If there is a fool in this equation, it is the fool’s errand of hunting these birds without a dog. And in my view, a good pointing dog is essential to fully appreciating the Mearns’ quail hunting experience.

While locating widely dispersed coveys can still be difficult, no gamebirds I know hold longer and tighter for a point than a Mearns’ covey. After all that strenuous hiking, walking up on a dog frozen on point with its nose to the ground right in front of it (where the covey is likely to be) is exhilarating. And that’s before the shooting even starts.

And speaking of challenge: A covey’s explosive flush from underfoot can rattle even the most experienced hunter. The birds are fast, and they usually depart erratically in multiple directions. Quickly identifying open shooting lanes before they disappear requires good reflexes and experience.

Mearns’ quail challenge bird dogs as well as hunters. Since coveys are often far apart, the dog must be capable of covering a lot of rough ground. Even during winter, temperatures can be hot here, with surface water sources few and far between. This means carrying plenty of water for the dogs and offering it to them frequently.

Although snakes are largely inactive during the winter, they are still a concern. All my dogs go through a snake avoidance clinic before I take them hunting in Mearns’ habitat.

Over the course of multiple seasons, I have noted one phenomenon that I can’t explain. However, I’ve heard other experienced Mearns’ hunters make the same observation, supporting its validity. Here it is.

Inexperienced dogs’ behavior often suggests that the smell of a Mearns’ quail is different from that of other upland gamebirds. When friends visit, I have seen proven, veteran bird dogs run right through Mearns’ coveys without hesitating. This behavior seems to diminish with experience, suggesting a steep but manageable learning curve for dogs unfamiliar with the quarry.

One justification for all this challenge is the sight of a male Mearns’ quail on the wing, or better yet, in the hand. The striking, distinctive pattern on their faces (the source of the name “harlequin”) makes them look exotic, as if they originated on another continent — or another planet. In fact, the Mearns’ quail is indigenous to our desert Southwest, where I regard it as iconic, along with javelina, coati and the occasional wandering jaguar.

Imagine hunting a gamebird that looks as if it came from outer space, in mountain terrain as steep as chukar country, while shooting through cover as dense as ruffed grouse habitat. Every solid point feels like a triumph for the dog, every downed bird a triumph for the wingshooter.

Aldo Leopold once observed (I’m paraphrasing here) that the satisfaction of the hunt lies not in what is shot, but in the effort required in doing so.

By that standard, I consider Mearns’ quail our most challenging upland quarry. And the most rewarding.

While Mearns’ quail are not migratory, Don Thomas and his wife Lori are, heading to Arizona every winter to live with their bird dogs in Mearns’ country.

My Last Day is for Sharptails

By Anthony Hauck

If I had one last earthly day to hunt?

Hmmm. That’s a tough one. I suppose it would go something like this. I would drive west through a few dots on the map until a place where the dots and then the blacktop end.

Once on gravel, I’d spy a buck mule deer next to an abandoned farmstead, with antlers so big you’d have to rub your eyes just to make certain your mind isn’t fusing the burr oaks behind him.

To shake the night and the cool off, I’d climb hills to meet the rising sun. The spaniel doing the same would beat me to it

A covey of grouse would do a fly-by, settling in three ridges and three swales over. With every inch as far as the eye can see open to me, the only consideration would be when we want to get there.

Because we’d have all day, and also because my wild plum spot would be in desperate need of checking, we’d choose the long way. I’d fill an empty vest pouch with a dozen or so “for the road.”

Near the bushes, we’d jump a jackrabbit. I’ve found they’re luckier with all four feet attached.

We’ll find those grouse, getting frustratingly close enough to push them three ridges and three swales over. It would be okay — you don’t want your final hunt to end too early.

To shake the heat off, we’d take refuge under a relic of a cottonwood. I’d eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich — saving the crust for the never-not-hungry spaniel — and a handful of those wild plums. My field hat would slip down over my eyes, inducing the kind of dream sleep where one ponders such things as final meals and last hunts.

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Peeking under the lid, I’d catch the spaniel in a gentle gaze, a breeze rustling her ears and giving her nose scents to sort out. Even she would know that every once in a while you have to stop and smell the wild sunflowers.

Slipping through a winding bottom, the spaniel would leave no silver buffaloberry unturned. Her meticulousness would finally be rewarded.

Even with a bird in hand, we’re still on the lookout for our covey, which would flush wild at the end of the draw, moving three ridges and three swales over. We’d be going that direction anyway, so it’s all the same.

Near the last known grouse hideout, we’d find a deer skull. I suppose it would make a fine mount in an office or study but seems better left amidst its tangle of late summer grass. I could only hope his last meal was wild plums.

Just when you think we’d be flagging, we’d glide over the next two hills. This is the essence of sharptail country: Simply being unfettered is enough to fuel us.

With the sun starting to hang, the spaniel would finally catch up to our covey. On its rise, I’d pick the rightmost bird, eyes and gun glued on him until enough horizon crept in below. On the shotgun’s report, I’d steal a glimpse of the group’s dawdler going out the back door. I’d have shot skeet for three consecutive months, and this would be the chance to put all that practice into performance. I would.

The spaniel would retrieve both birds, earning a heaping helping of praise. I’d think about snapping a photo, but then remember that I once read taking photos messes with one’s memory of the moment. So I’d decide not to fuss with it, and instead lock onto the spaniel’s eyes, searing the moment irrevocably to my soul, so that nothing —not age, dementia, space or time — could ever pry it from that place.

Measured in her years, the spaniel and I have spent 70 together, so by now I would know “limit” is not a word in her vocabulary. I’d simply cut her loose again to hunt some more.

With empty gun broken over my shoulder, I’d watch her every move.

Measured in miles, it would be a very long walk back to the truck. But going by meadowlarks and mule deer, it would go by all too quickly.

On the climb to the big plateau, the air would stratify, an autumn mist filling the coulee below. At the top, summer Venus would greet us with her evening gleam from the western sky.

When you love someone, you have to tell them, so I call the spaniel in and do just that.

Come to think of it, if I had one last day of hunting, it would go exactly like today.

And if we make it through the night, we’ll do it again tomorrow.

Anthony Hauck walks all manner of uplands behind his little field-bred English cockers, but sharptail country beckons loudest … until pheasant season begins.

A Solitary Pursuit

By Matt Soberg

Think about something that you truly love in life. Maybe you read a classic book to relax before bed. Maybe you play catch with your son in the front yard on a sunny summer day. Maybe you sit in the boat with a beer to watch bobbers gently float on the lake.

If you could pick one thing that makes you most fulfilled, what would it be?

Next, think about why you love it so much. How does it exemplify your true passions in life? How do the feelings bring you back for more? These attributes identify the ultimate nature of an experience for what it is. This culmination is the true essence of an activity that defines meaning in our lives.

For me, I live to hunt ruffed grouse in the Northwoods in a solitary pursuit. I learned this from my father and grandfather before him, and hope these traditions will continue to trickle down through future generations of hunters after me.

My grandfather was as Norse as a man could get. He started a construction company quite young and scratched out a living for his family. True to his Scandinavian roots, he would don a red-plaid jacket and floppy-eared hat every Saturday afternoon to hunt the Northwoods when the weather was right. He’d open the shotgun seat of the trusty, rusty red Ford truck for the bird dog, and off they’d go for a day’s solitary pursuit of wild game.

Whether the quarry was ruffed grouse, waterfowl or whitetails, the food made a difference for the family, especially in those long Minnesota winter months when outside construction jobs were hard to come by.

Before my father was old enough, my grandfather always hunted alone. Those Saturdays in the forests were nearly religious. Unfortunately, my grandfather is no longer with us, but I have heard a multitude of special stories around the campfire from generations carrying on his legacy.

Fast forward multiple decades, and I, too, prefer an afternoon in a solitary pursuit. I always wondered why my grandfather hunted alone. Was it because he had to? Was it because he truly loved the chase? That same desire was bestowed upon me by blood, and through time alone in the woods myself, I learned the true essence of it all.

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October is too short, so I take an afternoon alone from everything in the world every chance I can. The short drive calms my mind from the worries of work as the dogs do the opposite, whimpering with heightened anticipation.

The trail greets a hunter with the open arms of oranges and reds of changing leaves on the branches hanging overhead. The dogs run with the athleticism and purpose that only the pure passion of instinct can muster. The birds are there … somewhere … hidden by the perils of thorns and ticks and miles of boot leather from the truck.

The only mission is to find the treasure that they bestow upon a discerning hunter willing to pursue the challenge.

The cadence of the dog bell sets the tone for the upland song with missed shots adding a hint of percussion to its melody. The silence inherent in the point sets the scene in slow motion that suspends time. Mind and body lock into focus on the dog’s location while maneuvering through the obstacles hindering the path. No being is as intense as a dog on point, and the moment’s gradual crescendo climaxes with the flush of the wily grouse in a mere blur of brown or gray in the distance.

The ultimate goal is for me to do my part with the shotgun in my hands. I am the first to admit that the harmony of the hunt results in more misses than hits, but I have held a grouse in hand a time or two. Considering the many pitfalls along the way, I can likewise admit that holding such a valiant creature is worth a precious fortune.

As an editor, I’d be a rich man if I had a nickel for every story I’ve read with prose that started something like this: “The golden coins of autumn fell to the ground as I walked the trail behind my bird dog…”

It is almost impossible to uniquely describe the beauty of October. I once made fun of this phenomenon because it happened so often. But as I grow old, I have come to appreciate the sentiment for what it is. The golden coins are just as much part of the fortune of grouse hunting as the beautiful habitat and intense dogs and wild birds that together create the experience that I hold so dear.

I now know why my grandfather treasured the solitary pursuit. I now know why I do too. A hunt for ruffed grouse in the Northwoods may be solo in nature … but is far from it in its true essence. A grouse in hand is full of fortune, and we are never truly alone in the search.

Matt Soberg is easily lured out of the office and into the grouse woods of central Minnesota for October afternoons of solitary pursuit.

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This story originally appeared in the 2022 Upland Super Issue of the Quail Forever Journal. If you enjoyed it and would like to be the first to read more great upland content like this, become a member today!

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