ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 3, 1997 TAG: 9702040012
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
For Charles Bays, a hunt last week started out like a walk into the good old days of grouse gunning. Thirty minutes into the outing, six birds had flushed, causing Bays to say, ``This is the most grouse I've seen all season.''
The first flushes came roaring out of a clump of thick, berry-producing bushes that were bathed in the morning sun. One bird beat a retreat up a creek hollow; another flew onto a ridge cloaked with native pines. Fifteen seconds later a third also took a mad dash into the pines.
The trio had flushed wild, before Bays' setter, Maggie, had a chance to work them and well out of shotgun range. But just seeing a grouse can jump-start a hunter's day.
Times have been tough for bird hunters and bird dogs who pursue grouse and quail.
Quail hunts, in the western part of the state nowadays are little more than armed hikes. Bays, who lives in Roanoke County, has worked only two coveys of wild birds this season. There was a time if you hadn't flushed that many by noon on a typical day you could say you were off to a poor start.
If you want to see your dog on point and feel the weight of game bulging in the pocket of your hunting jacket, you go to a commercial shooting preserve. Or you can follow a different drummer and give grouse a try - and grouse aren't easy.
At Bays' annual wild-game dinner, on Super Bowl Sunday, most of the quail, brown and breast upright, were the product of a shooting preserve. The single grouse that graced the affair was carved into paper-thin slices so everyone could savor a taste of its succulent, white meat.
No matter how lean the results, Bays isn't about to give up on bird hunting, and certainly not on bird-dog ownership.
``As long as I'm able to hunt, I'm going to have a bird dog,'' he said. So far, that's been the past 26 years.
For Bays, hunting and hunting dogs are inseparable. When a hunter owns a dog, he always has a willing partner, so he spends more time in the woods and fields. There are fewer excuses to stay home. If for no other reason, he goes for the benefit of the dog. His setter was bred to hunt, and it bounds to life quivering in anticipation each time he comes out the door. It doesn't matter how much promise the season holds. You don't thwart that kind of enthusiasm and continue to look your dog in the eye.
During the grouse hunt, Bays tells about Maggie standing a covey of wild quail in a sorghum patch this season. He does so with a bit of awe in his voice, and you can envision old Maggie locked on a point, her soft, white fur etched against the brown cover.
Dogs, especially those in harmony with their masters, are an important part of the joy of bird hunting. Dogs that locate birds and point out their hiding spots, and guns that are a pleasure to shoot, and old friends willing to help you search for a bird you probably didn't hit, and the mystery of scent, and the magic of flight, and a patch of cover that looks as if it can't fail.
The grouse cover Bays penetrated had that kind of unkempt look that hunters call ``birdy," with the exception that the north side of the ridges were clothed in snow. The snow was encased in a sheen of ice that even the pounding of lug-sole boots wouldn't dent. It would make a fine Olympic luge run, but it was a fright for a grouse hunter who prefers walking, as opposed to being carried, from the woods.
Nor did the grouse appear to like it. They were sticking to terrain free of snow, places that the warming rays of the afternoon sun had gently caressed.
In three hours, Bays would flush eight grouse, a marvelous ratio that later would appear much less enticing when applied to the leaner hunts that had occurred earlier.
Grouse populations have been suffering a slow decline, although nothing like the plunge quail have taken. It is too early to tell how the 1996-97 season - which ends Saturday - will be remembered. The final count will come when serious hunters tally their hours afield and their number of flushes.
Last season was better than average. The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' annual survey revealed that hunters enjoyed 1.5 flushes per hour of effort, the second-best year on record. The rate ebbs and swells with the seasons and has dipped to less than half what it was last year.
Hunters participating in the survey the past season averaged 12 trips afield, spending about a half-day each outing and killing - get this - 0.11 birds per hour of effort. Remember, it was a better-than-average season.
Grouse hunting isn't a reliable means of putting meat on the table. Hunts nowadays seldom end when limits are taken. They end when fatigue sets in; when hope is gone; when the sun sets.
Why bother? The unpredictable nature of the bird is one of the factors that keeps luring grouse hunters afield to take still another beating.
Like the bird Bays flushed at the end of his hunt. This one sat still and let Bays walk past with Maggie on point well to the front.
Bays was making those long, stiff steps that bird hunters take when approaching a dog frozen in point, the kind you'd use if you were walking through a mine field.
The grouse could have stayed put, relying on its super camouflage, but it elected to flush in a violent roar of feathers when Bays had passed. There must have been something unnerving about a particular step or pause that Bays made.
When it did flush, instead of winging away from Bays, it zoomed past him and over the head of Maggie as if to say, ``Get me if you can!''
Most times you can't.
The Virginia Mountain Chapter of the Ruffed Grouse Society has scheduled its ninth annual banquet at 6 p.m. March 8 at the Holiday Inn-Tanglewood. Tickets are $45 apiece, $65 for couples. The price includes membership in the organization.
The ticket contact is Robin Leonard, 297-1014.
LENGTH: Long : 109 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. (headshot) Charles Bays. 2. BILL COCHRAN STAFF. ``Itby CNBis right here, Boss!'' That's what Maggie, an English setter, is
indicating as she locks onto a grouse and Charles Bays moves in for
a flush. 3. NELL BOLEN If you can't find quail, you can chase grouse
and hope for the best. color.