Month: December 2022

Book Review: Mouthful of Feathers

Upland bird hunting books are not rare. Ranging from how-to volumes to the more esoteric; from accounts of hunting everything a continent has to offer, to state, region or bird-specific exploits; from well-written, thought-provoking essays, to rather unassuming barstool tales. They are all fun to explore, if you are interested in upland bird hunting, but not all of them leave a mark. Some are destined to be consumed and forgotten, providing temporary distraction from the drudgeries of life. Others make you feel something, make you think, create impressions that linger. If you are open to it, “Mouthful of Feathers – Upland in the West” belongs to the the latter category.

If you are hoping to find a raucous read of the “I came, I saw, I killed a limit” kind, this is not your book. In fact, not too many birds get shot in the stories that comprise this volume. If you are after details about guns and gauges, you will also be disappointed, as I think there is only one story that specifically mentions a gauge, when talking about a lost childhood gun.

Eleven stories take you from a stormy rainy day in Alaska, to the desert border country of Arizona; from searching for the tiniest of quail to remembering days gone by hunting the biggest sage grouse. Tales of solitude and simple days on the plains (read the book to find out why I cannot say prairies anymore), with a bag limited in numbers, but limitless in memories. There is even mention of New England, but since this is a book about the West, the author is leaving it behind. In between the chapters, the editor placed annotated quotes, little gems that stand on their own, and reset the mind for the next story.

It’s hard to pick a favourite story, as they are quite diverse in nature. I recognized myself in a few of them, knowing I’d have chosen the same pursuit that day. Even though there was no attempt at making it sound glorious, or even slightly appealing, after reading one tale, all I wanted to do was load up the dog, get lost on a dirt track somewhere and waste time drinking beer, roasting wieners, think deep thoughts about my life and the past and future of our planet. Bird hunting optional. And I don’t even like wieners.

+++

This book was published as en e-book in 2013, and plans to go to print never materialized. I bought it through the Barnes& Noble website, in “Nook” format. For less than the price of a Double Tall Soy Latte with a Pump of Hazelnut you’ll buy yourself a few hours of dream time.

For easy reading on your tablet, you need the Barnes & Noble Nook app. Canadians beware: this app is not available for you. B&N will happily sell you the file access in Canada, but you’ll be stuck reading the online version, which I found awkward to navigate. Also, I don’t like to sit at my desk to read a book. After purchasing and realizing my predicament, I somehow managed to download the file, have my son convert it to Kindle format, and finagle it onto my brand new Kindle reader.

There was only one other drawback to this book: it was too short. The book itself provides the perfect quote: “Lunch was concluded with a foamy mouthful of Pilsner. It was just enough; not so much that I didn’t want another swallow. It’s nice to finish a beer wanting a bit more.” After reading this you’ll likely want just a bit more. Luckily, a print book has been announced with all new material for the summer of 2023. Available for pre-order now. I ordered mine. In the mean time, blog posts on the Mouthful of Feathers website by some of the same and other authors will have to fill the gap.

Crop Science – Addendum

A few snow storms had raged across the foothills, and what was left for berries and greens had quickly been covered. The usual covers of mixed young pine and sapling aspens, which had the undergrowth to provide both food and shelter, no longer provided either. The birds had moved.

Despite the warm-up provided by the Chinook winds further East, closer to the mountains it was still bitterly cold. Unsure where to find birds, I drove a little further West than last time, and started following a rutted trail heading North. Tall spruce trees on either side framed a pretty claustrophobic picture, with only  the occasional break in the monotony where small water courses had cut into the hills side, or blow-downs had opened up the canopy. We flushed one early, but I never saw it. Finn found another, a nice male, but it had survived smarter predators. A quick run, and a flush across the trail with the sun at his back, and in my eyes, and he was safe.

We were looking for more mature aspen groves. Allegedly, ruffies switch their diet to aspen buds in winter, which are well above the frozen, snow-covered forest floor. Much of the foothills at our latitude are covered in spruce forests, not the best habitat for good bird numbers. After a while, we circled downhill and worked back South along the base of young cover, with big spruces on our right, and an open valley with lots of low willows beyond those.

We got lucky. A bird flushed from underneath the low hanging branches of a big spruce, and made a dash for a backlit opening up ahead. Feathers slowly drifted down to earth after the shot. The young-of-the-year bird lay in the snow, for Finn to retrieve. As he brought the bird, another one flushed off to our right. I couldn’t help but smile. We had one bird, it was enough.

I opened the crop to see what it had been eating. Aspen twigs and buds, a pretty rough diet, confirming what I had read. I wished the remaining birds in this area a good winter. Time for us to move on, and find some new trails. Still a little time left in the season.

Pheasants anew

Finn had shown much promise as a pheasant dog, last year, all of seven months old. Found birds, pointed birds, pointed birds where other groups with dogs had just before gone through, pointed a “covey” of four roosters, that rose one by one, the young pup staunchly remaining on point, while Kyle and I managed to kill none of them. Expectations for this season were not high, but well above moderate.

The “back 40” partridge coveys had provided good practice material, in early spring, before nesting, and in the weeks leading up to the start of the season, with the chicks flying as wild as their parents. It was not without a bit of pride that I dropped the odd hint about his steadiness. Shooting chukars during training days and a NAVHDA test had honed my skills a bit too, I thought. We were ready to have a great pheasant season!

We had drawn three slots at the Taber Pheasant Festival to kick things off. The first afternoon Finn and I and nobody else, because everybody canceled, overlooked an expanse of cattails, with a few drainage ditches leading in and out of it. I was just going to take it slow, let Finn do his thing, get some good points, work on steadiness, and perhaps shoot a bird. That cockiness was rudely and rightly crushed when the first bird went up. A straightaway, the gimme of upland shots, bird well within range, but wait, Finn hadn’t pointed it. Never mind, I was already swinging and missing. I tried to convince myself I didn’t want to kill that bird anyway, because I was training the pup to be steady, but lying to yourself is rather hard.

It went downhill from there. My notes say I shot seven times, and the limit for pheasants is two. Finn managed two sort-of points, which gave some hope, and I managed a couple of hits, but we flushed more birds without points or shots. Finn worked hard, but got a little flustered by the raucous birds, and so did I.

The next day, Finn’s brother King came out to play, and we managed to put up a fair number of birds. Miraculously I hit two with two shots, but again points were hard to come by. The birds tended to run out in front of the dogs, and neither of them hesitated to snort them up via their tracks. The third day Finn made a beautiful point on a covey of huns, and I promptly missed.

A week later we were out again, found pheasants and sharpies, got a nice point on a hen pheasant, and I double missed a rooster. Twice. Managed to shoot a consolation sharptailed grouse, so the dog kept some faith in my skills.

There was one redemption weekend left in the schedule. Finn could use some solid points, and I could use some solid hits. We started off fantastic, as Finn worked a patch of buck brush along a coulee, and drew to a point. Unfortunately the bird flushed wild before Kyle could get in range. Not much later he pointed again, at the base of some brush in the same coulee, and held till I got close. When the bird flushed, Kyle got a little trigger happy and the close hit pre-tenderized the meat sufficiently. Finn didn’t skip a beat retrieving.

The pup was having a great day. As we were walking back along the opposite side of the coulee, he went back to where we had already passed. “He’ll probably find one all the way down in there”, Kyle said, and as if on cue, Finn pointed. I started down towards him, but was still a little far off when the rooster flushed. It took a second or two before my brain kicked in, but I managed an impressive shot – at least I like to think of it as such – on the quartering bird, leading him by a double body length. Nice retrieve to hand followed.

The following day we hunted another long, wide coulee with lots of cover on one side and along the creek in the bottom, and the odd grove of trees on the opposite side. Finn pointed a bird right off the bat, but broke and grabbed the hen. Luckily he is fairly gentle and we managed to send the bird off flying minus some feathers. Not much further Finn worked a particular spot for a minute or two, breaking off but returning a few times, until finally a rooster emerged and rose above the low brush, quartering away until my shot connected. Two for two for the weekend, and half-decent points, we could have quit and gone home happy right there.

Finn dug up a few more birds from the snow, but all flushed out of my range, or obscured by cover. On the way back, looping through a connecting coulee, he disappeared into some high bush and I lost sight of him. “He may be onto something there”, Kyle yelled from across the coulee, and directed me. I found him on point in thick cover, but my approach was too much of an incentive and he dug in. After a few tries he pushed out a hen pheasant. While not textbook, the length of holding point until I got there was impressive. Best we’d seen all season.

We ended the day, and pheasant season, by a quick snapshot at a hun, that he neatly retrieved. Three for three for the shooter, and some nice points and solid retrieves by the dog. We both need some polishing around the edges, but I think the team has potential.

F.