Thanksgiving Grouse

[Cass]

Got out with my brother in law yesterday morning for a hunt and took Stella girl solo. After her last couple of hunts with Jake her confidence is definitely improving and she's covering ground better each time. Yesterday i was more focused on looking to see if the woodcock were moving in yet but we didn't find a single one. She bumped one ruffed grouse so i didn't take a shot. Then we heard one drumming so we worked our way towards the sound. We came to this little patch of deciduous cover in the middle of a bunch of cedars. We were sure the bird was in there so we worked around it with the dog. At first she didn't seem to pick up any scent. I walked through the cover pushing towards my BIL and didn't move anything. He was positive he heard it drumming right before i came through. I said there is no way if there was a bird in there it would've stayed put when i came through so we looked around for the next closest patch and tried there. Then we heard drumming again... coming from where we were so we worked the dog back towards it near a fallen tree that i had walked right by. Stella slams point hard and i said to my BIL "did you hear that? It's running!" Craziest bird ever, this thing was running around in this little thick stand of cover. I released Stella and she snakes her way forward, relocating and then hammering a point.... to which I released her again and she relocated and pointed again 4 times in total before she had the bird pinned between her and my BIL. He made the shot and she retrieved the bird. Ihave never in my life seen a southern grouse run like this thing did. Great to watch the pup learn how to handle a runner in real time without ever putting so much pressure on it that it flushed. It's wild how much I struggled with getting this pup to point with pigeons and chukars and launchers and literally 1 month into hunting wild birds she's slamming points hard and allowing me to either move in and flush or release her.