Upland bird hunting for central and midcoast Maine woodcock and grouse once appealed to me, and one allure began with lots and lots of action. It was unbelievable at times.

Like a sun-splashed, cloudless Saturday circa 34 years ago. My orange Belton setter made 53 points in Windsor, Somerville, Appleton and Searsmont, mostly woodcock with bonus grouse. The following Saturday, the same dog pointed 52 game birds in that 4-1 ratio.

That day, peak foliage had ridges ablaze, beautiful beyond words, but leaves hung thickly enough to limit shooting opportunities and, besides, the daily grouse and woodcock limit numbered nine per person.

When hunting with the setter back then, I only shot over points and with the Lab over clean flushes. My companions and I also avoided shooting at bumped birds. I also kept my daily bag to four woodcock instead of the then limit of five.

My covers were filthy with woodcock early in the season, but later they thinned out plenty when open covers offered much easier wing shots.

Weird incidents happened when a dog averaged 25 points a day. Once after backing into a pull-off on the edge of a classic, upland-bird cover, I let out the setter, and she pointed before jumping to the ground.

A woodcock sat 20 feet away under an alder bough, flushed predictably when pushed and fell into a puff of feathers on the shot. How many points and successful shots do we make with a truck-body point?

Another time with my chocolate Lab, we were pushing down a hedge between fields. A woodcock flushed at my feet, flew up between the shotgun and chest and stung my face with its wings before flying away. I was rattled, and shot both barrels without dislodging a feather. The Lab looked up at me with derision bordering on scorn.

Another time at the same spot, my setter pointed on the field’s edge with lifted paw, high tail and intense face. I pushed into poplar saplings, flushed a female woodcock and dumped it with stone-like certainty 20 yards away.

“Dead bird,” I said loudly .

The setter would point out downed birds if they lay still, and she pinned them if they tried to run. She never retrieved game, because some old-timer had told me that fetching birds softened their points. I was young then and believed — so I never taught her the skill. (My last setter did retrieve with no ill effects.)

Anyway, the dog had her nose practically on this timberdoodle, pointing it dead. Immediately after I picked up the hen, she flew from my hand. I tightly squeezed the fingers to trap it but only grasped feathers.

After the woodcock had flown, I glanced at the little regal setter, and as the Lab did, she looked at me in disgust.

In another cover, my tiny setter once pointed on the edge of a spreading sumac stand. Her mannerism shouted, “grouse.”

The bird was indeed a grouse and flew straight into a blinding sun, but my shot knocked it down anyway. It fell behind a knoll, and when I got there, the setter was getting the worst of it but resolutely held on.

The grouse was beating one wing hard on the side of her face on a closed eye, fanning it so hard that it made a percussion noise. The setter’s other eye bore a pleading look that said, “Do something!”

These days, midcoast and central Maine don’t match the upland-bird hunting of yesteryear, mostly because development has eaten up classic covers at an alarmingly fast rate. Serious upland bird-hunting friends now head north in October.

In the 1970s, it took me five full days to hunt from Augusta to Belfast. I went the exact same route in the mid-1990s and ate lunch at Darby’s in Belfast. Most of my old covers were gone — either developed or grown into primary forests.

Stuff like that really hurts, and folks my age know that pain well.

Ken Allen of Belgrade Lakes is a writer, editor and photographer. He can be contacted at:

KAllyn800@yahoo.com

 

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