Opening Day Grouse hunting 2013

The night before grouse hunting opened I had to work a night shift. I arranged my schedule to get off at 4 am instead of my usual 6 am. That gives me two hours to drive home, get ready and get the family up and awake for hunting. So I get home get both the car seats moved over to the Jeep. The best thing for me about getting the family up is waking up my three year old daughter Maddy by giving her a little shake and asking her if she wants to go hunting. I am always greeted with a big smile and a soft whisper of  "yes". The wife heard me get home so her and baby Elsa got up without any help. We loaded everything up and got going about 10 minutes late.

While I am grouse hunting I am very superstitious. Silly things like, I have to be wearing the right clothes, I have to ride the gate to our hunting road and when I am driving I have to hold two shells in my one of my hands. I don't know what to say but it work for me.

We get to the road we will be hunting and start the slow drive. Since we had the baby a few months prior my wife wont be doing any long hikes this year. We get all the way to the end of the road and did not see a simgle grouse. I figure its going to be one of those frustrating opening days. We tell ourselves that sometimes we see birds on the way out to make ourselves feel better.  So we turn around and start making our way out. A ways down the road I see the first grouse. As it starts running through the bushes it flushes into a tree. The wife offers me the first grouse of the year and I take the shot. The bird came tumbling down out of the tree.

A few minutes later I found my second bird. As I drove around a few corners all of a sudden there was a grouse running for its life in front of the Jeep. The grouse flushes into a tree and I get my second bird of the day.

A few more corners down the road I find one for my wife to shoot up in the bushes. So now the pressure is off and everyone is happy. Except now my wife has a bit of confidence and she tells me she would like to limit out in one of the up coming days.

We get to the main road and I decide to take the main loop around instead of the quick drive home. While driving down the main road I catch a flushing grouse out of the corner of my eye. I slam on the breaks walk back find the grouse and add my third grouse for the day.



We drive a few more roads and did not find any more grouse for the morning hunt. But we did see a bear with a funny yellow patch of fur on his right rear thigh. I was also able to get a rabbit in the bag as well.

We returned home so I could get some sleep since I had been up since 5 PM the day before.

My wife woke me up for the evening hunt. I was having a really hard time waking up, but then I remembered I only had one more grouse to go for my limit. We went to the same area but drove the upper road.  A mile in on the road I spotted a grouse running through the grass about 40 feet off the road. I chased after it and it flushed. I shot at it in the air and missed. I shot under it as it flew into a tree. I knocked it out of the tree and returned to the Jeep with my limit for the day.  We did not see another grouse for the night.

Five grouse for opening day was good enough for us and we went home very happy and content.

Alaska Please Don't Eat Me

So OBN has a writing prompt asking what would be or was your scariest outdoor experience.



It was June 2011. I was on a boat trip heading from Ketchikan, Alaska to Juneau, Alaska. We were taking two weeks to go from point A to point B. I told the captain (who happened to be my Dad) that I wanted to stop along the way and do some fresh water fly fishing. I had some success in one small stream but was having some issues finding something to bite my dry flies.

We stopped at this one spot which had a nice sized river coming into the bay we were anchored.  So I tried talking my wife into going on a hike with me. But since she had already gone on a few death marches with me on this trip with little to no results, she said no. However, I was able to convince my Dad to drop me off as far up river as possible with the dingy.

The pointy eared creature

So after Dad hit a few rocks with the boat motor he kicked me out into the tall green grass of the salt marsh, with just my fly fishing rod and a camera. My goal was to get above the tide line to fish fresh water without any influence of salt water. I stayed in touch with the big boat via a handheld radio. As I walked though the deep grass knowing full well I was in grizzly bear, black bear, wolf, and moose habitat, I came up with a song to sing while walking through the grass.

Please Bear don't eat me.

Don't eat me because I'm skinny and tough.

I promise Mr. Bear you won't enjoy me.

Please Bear don't eat me.

I sang this over and over at the top of my lungs as I walked.

I came around a corner and there they were two black creatures staring at me. They had pointed snouts and their ears stood up as they were alerted to my presence by my singing. The only thing I could think of was Oh shit I just walked up on two black wolves and they now know they have an easy dinner. I knew I could not out run them so I pulled out my camera and I figured well when they find my body they will see the pictures of what ate me.

Then the two creatures stood up on their hind legs, and I thought wow these are some talented wolves. Then it hit me Oh Thank God they are just black bears. So of course I stuck around and got some more photos of the two.

The fishing hike ended when after an hour and a half of walking I was still in the salt marsh and I had a moose bolt out in front of me.  I also had to meet up with Dad before too long to get a ride back to the big boat.




This was not my only close encounter with bears in the Alaskan Wilderness this trip, just the one that got my heart going the fastest.

Another bear encounter later in the trip.