This afternoon Jake and I were invited to go grouse hunting with my neighbor and new friend Chris Colt. Chris brought along his two one-year-old labs and I brought Jake. It was a new experience for myself as well as for Jake. We went up on Cove Mountain near my home and found some really nasty terrain (around 9,000 feet in elevation). It was steep and thick with pines and aspens and we just started hiking the upper edge of the tree line. It only took about ten minutes before we had our first flush. There was a storm blowing in so the grouse were roosting in the trees which gave them the advantage. The first one flushed straight at me and passed over my head and by the time I fired he was on his way down the mountain and well out of range.

After flushing four grouse and hiking some extremely rough mountainside, we dropped down and doubled back hoping to pick up the missed birds. We flushed one bird on our return trip and my buddy blasted him. A very healthy grouse, I was surprised to see that they are nearly as large as a pheasant. His labs did a great job of marking the bird and retrieving to hand. They made Jake look like a chump, very impressive since they are basically the same age. I attribute their success to the qulaity of training, since I know Jake has an inexperienced trainer. I think it is good anytime you can hunt with dogs that know the game better than yours. Hopefully a little of it rubs off on Jake and he gets a better idea of what is expected.