WHAT LESSONS HAVE WE LEARNED?

I have been hunting grouse for over 24 years. I have been pursuing this bird with the help of pointing dogs since 2000. I would tell you that over those many years, I have learned every lesson of  life, that is possible. Through my life, I have known love, hate, pain, disappointment, exhilaration, perseverance, loss, gain, pride and most important LIFE!

These things might seem mundane to those that live in the city, but for us that exist in the mountains, these things matter to us. These are the building blocks of life, that form everything, including success. So I suffer you to listen to my ranting for just a bit. I know that its not my most picturesque writing but you know, sometimes you just have to express and impress your feelings on folks! 

Why hunt grouse to learn anything, instead of killing grouse? Well I guess if you go through your hunting career feeling that way, if you think of hunting as a diversion or sport. But for me and many of my friends and clients, HUNTING is a way of life. It is our life! Work for me is a passion, as I would hope is for most, but hunting, especially hunting grouse is my obsession. Without it, I am not Russ!

So let me break it down for you, if you will allow me. Love? Love of my sport, love of a bird that I have pursued over decades. Love of the habitat that it calls home. The smells, the sounds, the distinction of the landscape. All these things that I can equate to life, unlike many that call the city home. Love, that assist me in dealing with the dailies of life, when I am not on the mountain. Love of my dogs! Love of my family, that I get to spend time afield with. The love of the smell of spent shells on a autumn day and the same but different smell amongst the hemlocks in the heart of winter. The  view I get of many places that exist that most don't even think or get the chance to see. One thing that comes to mind as I write this. Have you ever come across a bobcat, seen it run up thirty feet of fallen trees to cover that distance in a matter of 2 seconds? Well I have and I am a better man for it! I think I have so many things to say reference love of the wilds and the things that I have learned from it, I could fill a book ( Which I am sure some day I will). So lets move on!

Hate? Well I don't like using that term in both my Christian life and to include my Guiding and hunting life, but with all things come unpleasantries! What could you possibly hate in the grouse woods? I can tell you that I hate walking through my favorite covert and seeing the first signs of striped maple. I hate it because I know that that invasive species has nothing to give my covert, except some cover in the spring and late fall. I would much rather have those maples be replaced by cherries or beech. I hate coming across a pile of grouse feathers, that I know have been created by a coyote/wolf cross that now haunts my coverts. I know that the animals have to eat, but it pains me that the settlers of our area corrupted the woodlands and eliminated the natural predators that roamed our woods of Penn and that opened the flood gates! I hate clients that even though you put all you have into your hunts, people still want more! That's all I have to say about that!!!!!!