Take Your Show on the Road by Tom Keer, originally printed in Ruffed Grouse Society

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Re%urShow on the Road 6VTomKeer

Of all the activitiesI do in the outdoors,be it dogtraining shooting trout fishing, turkey hunting waterfowling,striper fishing, horsebackriding, or anythingelse,grouseandwoodcockhunting ranlcsfirst. I countdown everydayuntil the seasonbeginslike a I anticlpateopening kid countsdowndaysuntil summervacation. days,andcannotwait to getinto the field.

Still, everyyear around the third week in October I begin to get mixed emotionsabout pursuing my favoritegamebirds in my coverts. Around that time I experiencea profound changethat slows me down. I dont spring out of bed in the pre-dawndarkness.I walk through the aldersand white birch runs more leisurely.SometimesI take a break and just stop and sit a while.

At about that time my dogs wonder just what the heck is wrong with me. When I pull out a collar with a bell they claw at their kennel doors like cagedlions, and to them my lackluster condition is unbecoming.It's really a simple thing that is my crossto bear: I m sad.

I m sadbecauseI know that the end ofthe seasonis near.

Think about it. A 45-daywoodcock seasonis about l2o/oof the year.That meansI haveanother 887oto go until opening day.

To me that'sa long time. Dont get me wrong, I totally enjoy my other sporting activitiesand the folks I sharethem with.

But comparedto grouseand woodcock hunting which occupies my top slot, the rest are sort ofa consolationprize. I still enjoy an ice creamsundaeeventhough I reallywant a pieceof double-chocolatecake.

34 RGS I www.ruffedgrousesociety.org

Initially I thought that I would follow the woodcockflights and hunt them along their southernroute.For a while I hunted grousein the winter but then decidedthey were having a hard enough time finding food in the snowy uplands.Upon closer reflection I felt that I had harassedthe birds enough during October and November and that I would leavethem alone.Instead,Iil pursuea speciesnativeto my home hunting grounds in coastalMassachusetts, the bobwhite quail.

Trading my belovedalder runs and poplar standsis something that is not done very easily.When we get used to bull briars, raspberrythickets,and thick coverwith narrow shooting windows we can sometimesgetlost in the wide open fields and the softnessfound in wiregrass,lovegrass,and broom sedge.Pines like loblolly, slash, and longleaf grow tall and majestically.

Most dyed-in-the-wool grouse and woodcock hunters need a few flights to adjust to the open space.At leastI do. A snap shot in thick covert on a grousecontrastssharply with the opennessof the quail terrain. At first blush I count them all asgimmees.After a few easymissesI sharpenmy focusand

i I'm sadbecauseI know

thattheendof theseai sonis near.Think about

, it. Aas-daywoodcock i season is aboutl2o/oof theyear.ThatmeansI haveanotherSS%to go i until openingday.Tome that'sa longtime. bear down to give the dogs a few feathers in their mouths.

I stumbled upon Southern quail hunting naturally. My Tennessee-bornand North Carolina-raised wife has a family large enough to fill 15 long tables at an after-church bar-b-que. At the last gathering the count was about 100.Visiting family always made for a few easy sorties to the quail fields, and most of her family hded with introductions to landowners.

In recent history populations of wild bobwhites have been impacted like many other of our favorite gamebirds. Southern quail hunting is an incredibly strong tradition no different than Northern ruffed grouse hunting. Long-time quail hunters remember the days that Robert Ruark chronicled in The Old Man and the Boy. Ruark believed that hunting bobs between Christmas and New Year'swas the ideal time. "By this time the birds are steadied down and the dogs have had a lot ofpractice and theyte steadieddown, tool' When his New England uplands and lowlands were frozen solid, Corey Ford headed to North Carolina, and he gave pauseto running his grousedogs on quail.

"Thke a northern-trained setter out of his native alder coverts and put him down

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Winter2012| RGS35

On The Road, contiruted on page3! in a southern environment of sand and sedge and honeysuckletangle, I wondered what would happen?"So,too was the fact that most grouse hunters run one dog at a time while quail dogs are run as a pack.Add to the mix the lack of bells on a Southern dog and youve got even more differences.Ford goeson to talk about a dog's thick, winter coat being a handicap with the heat, and

combined with pulling a wad of hitchhikers from a long-haired setter youll know why pointers are so well received.

My easyacceptanceof hunting quail in the winter was unique to me, but it wasn't new to the world. The Red Hills region in South Georgia and North Florida has attracted New Englanders and Midwesternersfor over a century.I wasnt creating a new movement by any stretchof the imagination.Instead,I was just falling into line with the great ideas that were set forth aheadof me.

I no longer get sad in the third week of October.As Ive had a goal of hunting grouse and woodcock in all of their reaches,Ive now added a goal ofhunting bobwhitesin all of their nativelands.

Their terrain is expansiveand the environments diverse.For now I'll focus on Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia,and Florida. Once I get a flavor for thoseareasI'll graduallyheadfurther west. Nowadays I look forward to the winter. And my wait until grouse and woodcock seasonreopensat home is far shorter becauseofit. I

36 RGSI www.ruffedgrousesociety.org