After 12 days of hunting and one day of field trialing so far in October things are looking good. We are way ahead on the number of woodcock flushed and a little ahead of last year on grouse flushed. As is often the case early in the season, the shooting has been tough due to the cover still being quite thick. In the last couple of days the leaves have been coming down fast and with some rain and hard freezes in the near forecast everything should be down this weekend. The grouse were a little harder to come by this week as they have shifted covers and are probably in cuts that still have some bearing beech trees. It was also quite warm with the temperature Monday reaching the 75+ and yesterday was in the high 60s with a lot of humidity. The grouse really haven’t started hitting the apples and cranberries yet but that should change with colder weather. I’m pretty sure most of the woodcock we’ve seen so far are local birds that are starting to bunch up and we have yet to see a big push of birds from the north. One hunter that was in this week had hunted last Saturday north and west of Quebec City and got into a lot of native woodcock. Those birds will start moving with the cold weather this weekend. The second half of October is always the best for flight woodcock but it can easily be a here today gone tomorrow feast and famine.
These beechnuts were found in the crop of a grouse last weekend.
I have a day off today and them hunt straight through with clients to the end of the month. Many of my regular clients are already booking for next year. If you want to hunt with us in 2016 you probably want to get on the list soon.
For those of you that have been following the construction of the new kennel this summer, the outside is finally done with all twelve runs completed. Still need to do the sleeping boxes for the back side but that will have to wait for rainy or snowy days in November or December.
As you can see from the banner above Wild Apple Spot On carved another notch on his already impressive record with a win at the Leslie Anderson Derby Classic run at Cronk Farm in Nakawic, New Brunswick. He had two broke grouse finds in his half hour to clearly stand out form the field.