Yesterday morning we had a curious event that shows just how hard it can be to pin a grouse sometimes. We were working Frankie and Trip on quail here and Frankie got out where the puppies have been finding a grouse occasionally on our walks and went on point. Once I spotted him Trip came into the area and without seeing Frankie slammed on point about 50 yards in front of him on the other side of one of my trails. We flushed in front of both dogs and didn’t get anything in the air. When we sent them on the worked through a patch of woods for another 75 yards before Frankie had a Stop-to-flush on the grouse. That was a heck of a runner and had the dogs not followed it we might have assumed they both had unproductives.
We are continuing to scout for new covers and walked around one today that looks like it should be very productive. We flushed a grouse and saw borings around a number of the wet spots so we will most likely have both birds in there. We should be back in the woods by the end of June and if we have good weather for the grouse hatch it will be another good year for summer training and fall hunting.