8 Days in Maine: Are We Insane?
Today we’re finally off to chase some chickens, of the wood/furry variety: ruffed grousin’ in Maine. And yep, we’re going for 8 solid days.
Eight!
This is after we (Brendan and Jay) swore that we wouldn’t hunt more than 4 days at a stretch after last year’s week-long Maine marathon followed by a week-long Minnesota marathon.
In Maine it was hot, the raspberries were like 6 feet tall, all the leaves were up and it rained. The birds ran like Ben Johnson on the junk, and the woodcock were everywhere.
In Minnesota it was hot and dry when we got there, but then it got cold – and the leaves were down. Then we hunted through a record low storm system, basically a hurricane on land, and ended up with only a few birds on the week.
[Check out all our 2010-11 hunt reports here.]
Are we whining? No. Were they still awesome experiences? Absolutely. Were we so beat we couldn’t spell our names for a couple days after we got back? Yep…and that’s why 8 days sounds nuts. But maybe not.
(How long have you birded at a stretch? Let us know.)
The last few years we’ve been hunting Maine out of the Rockwood area, but this year decided to change things up and head west, to the well-known Rangeley area. We’re going to snoop around there as well as northeastern New Hampshire – NH partly because we’ve never hunted there before, and partly because Maine is one of those bass ackward states that still doesn’t allow hunting on Sundays.
So: new hunting area + 2 states + we’re finally going hunting + one guy suggested 8 days so the rest couldn’t back down (Brendan’s brother Sean will be there too) = 8 days!
That’s also 8 days with no dog…again. Brendan’s Lab, Bear, is ready to go but it’s too far a drive for Brendan (20+ hours) and no way he’s putting Bear on a plane. Jay as usual hasn’t gotten it together enough to pull the trigger on a Serious hunting dog yet, but that will change this winter.
So 8 days beating the brush, beating your own dog = tough! We can’t wait.
As usual we’ll be posting daily hunt reports. Last year we did it the week following, but this year we’ll try to do a little bit every day, here and/or on Facebook, plus probably some more the week following – when we’re not so deep in the drink at the end of the day, if you know what we’re saying….
Good luck to all our Serious brothers and sisters who will be out after the birds this week (and next)!
MIA
Oh yeah: We’ll be testing out a few items on the trip, some sent to us, some we bought. We have to mention two items that unfortunately are not making the trip: a new/better GPS and the Randolph Ranger glasses.
> Garmin has a couple of cool-looking new GPSs out with downloadable aerial maps, and they actually sent one to us but…well, we received everything (map data, chip, charger, holder) but the GPS itself. Bow was there, no unit in it. Don’t want to speculate about what happened to it, but…a bummer!
> Brendan has his Rangers which he’ll be wearing, but Jay will once again be going with his cheap “disposables” (he loses a pair a trip) again for reasons beyond our control.
Bottom line: Anyone using one of the new Garmin GPSs or Ranger glasses, please report back here or on our Facebook page.
Category: ME, NH, Ruffed Grouse, SBH, Woodcock
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