Sunday, January 28, 2024

Grouse Positioning System

A bird in the bag is worth a few in the bush.
Clover is their nutrient of choice proven by crop autopsy in multiple field trials.

It is much easier to pull off two-at-once than simultaneous-two.  If the birds are side-by-side AND close enough, the shot pattern will overlap both birds and spend only one cartridge in the process. It is fun and requires some immediate strategy calculation but in the end it is a luck driven enterprise that only allows reflexes to be tested if the grouse suddenly scurry and change their disadvantaged geography.  The technique is a boastful process and several of us have achieved this grounded distinction over the past couple years. Again, it is luck in discovering tandem birds within the automatic overlapping crossfire pattern accidentally.  It is bird-on-the-wing that owns the coveted bragging rights, though.

No winged skeet-like trophies have been claimed by our group because of our highly disciplined bird-in-the-bag reaction time and zero tolerance sighting protocol that allows no birds to fly.  (Erik witnessed a from-the-hip wing shot after a road bird survived a woman's miss  yet fell from the sky at the hand of her Jeremiah Johnson husband......but that wasn't us).  

The simultaneous shot is thus our best upland dual-bird bagging bragging right.  According to the Grouse Log entry,  we approached a single rock bird in clover and consulted for 30 seconds before finally and spontaneously and embarrassingly identifying a feeding ruffed grouse.  Zero tolerance flight protocol in mind,  I loaded one shell into the barrel and almost shouldered the shotgun. I was    interrupted by Bob's alert that there were two in the clover.  Another shell into the bottom and shotgun to shoulder with authority.  This story is taking more time to tell than the measure of its actual unfolding. Hereafter,  I  will synchronize with real time.

BANG! Bird two; 
BANG!! Bird one. 
The End






No comments: