The Race of Grouse
“The pa’tridge of this book is the grouse of the bayberry pastures and the junipers, where the alder runs continue down from the birch hill sides that are dotted with white pines and cedars, and here and there is found a wild apple tree in the corner of an ancient stone wall with blackberry vines and bullbriers tangled together beneath. There, in those long-lived-in parts of the East, is now found the race of grouse that has matched its wits and cunning with man and beast for three centuries and the education of which has been, for a long time, complete.”
These Birds Nowadays
“The old New England grouse dog lived in a day before the pheasant and in a country where quail were never plentiful. He had started out on grouse and while he had a good deal of experience on woodcock right in the grouse covers, he learned his game by having grouse shot over him from puppyhood. Today the experience on game and the training on bird work comes in a different way due to the change in the general grouse situation. Young grouse in late summer, and guided by a crafty old mother, are unsatisfactory birds to work the young dog on, strange as it may seem. The tendency of these young birds to fly into low trees right over the young dog, there to sit and sass him, are not very helpful. The few old grouse the young dog will encounter in his second year of his life when he needs bird work the most, are altogether too much for him. These birds nowadays tax the experienced dog to the limit and it is small wonder that, with occasional exceptions, the young dog learns few manners from them. To be sure, the shooting of just a few birds over the derby grouse dog is very important as this gives him his first real idea of what his mission in life is, but the opportunities are too few and too sketchy for the training that any spirited dog needs to become finished in game handling.”
The Pitch of a Gun
“The angle at which the butt of a grouse gun stock is cut off is also important in this connection. This angle determines what is called the pitch of a gun and may be measured by standing the gun against a door casing with the toe and heel firmly set on the threshold and with the breech touching the casing. If, with the gun so set, the rib runs parallel with the casing, the gun is said to be pitched straight. If the muzzle contacts before the breech does, the gun is pitched up. Again, if with the breech against the casing, the muzzle is away from it, the gun is pitched down and the distance between the casing and the muzzle is the amount of down pitch. Few grouse guns are ever pitched up and the average is from straight pitch to a down pitch of from one and a half to two inches. The pitch of a gun has no direct bearing on the way it will shoot but a gun with a straight pitch or that is pitched up has a long toe. When the gun is brought back smartly to seat on the shoulder the long toe may make the contact first and tends to throw the muzzle up.”
A Quick Swing
“Although the grouse does not get up with the rocket-like speed that is often attributed to it, one jumping well ahead cannot be dallied with. It gets out of range soon enough, but more likely it will get behind some obstruction even sooner. That is what tempts the gunner into snap shooting, usually to his sorrow, whereas he should tone down his burst into action with greater care. This brings to attention the most common and useful grouse shot, the corrected snap or, more correctly, the quick swing. With this shot the shooter can start with all the quickness the nervous impulse imparts. As with the snap shot, the gun comes to the eye level with great speed and with an approximate aim established, but instead of pulling the trigger the instant the gun is up, as the snap shooter does, a brief time is taken for a more precise aim. In this very short period of time the muzzle of the gun becomes a part of the picture, out of focus though it be. Somewhere over it, the vision is fixed on the bird. Is it rising? Is it dropping? Is it swinging to one side or the other, or is it going straight away? As quickly as the situation is comprehended the aim that has been roughly established by the first burst to action is corrected to one of comparative accuracy. With a quick swing the mark is overtaken and led and when this is done the trigger is pressed, and not before. So quickly is this correction made that an observer might easily mistake it for the snap shot, but that correction, accomplished by a quick readjusting swing, even while the trigger is being pressed, often is the difference between a successful shot, neatly made, or a good chance wasted. The quick swing of the corrected snap shot is the typical one in grouse shooting behind a dog and is the one that should be practiced and cultivated by those who expect to meet with grouse shooting success.”
