Grousing!
Fall is a damned busy time, though sometimes parts of it still feel like summer, which is also damned busy. Summer is full of fishing. And berry picking. And berry picking can trail into fall time if you're careful about it. Berry picking saved our caribou trip this year. But I reckon the clarion call of fall time for us grouse season! In our area the opener coincides with caribou. Don't get me wrong, caribou hunting excites me, but grousing really turns my gears. Upland bird hunting has rung my bell since I could work the pump on my first 22, a Rossi with an exposed hammer my dad bought me when I was too young but caught him in a moment of weakness. That gun accounted for an untold number of ptarmigan, no grouse where I grew up. It was also responsible for many ground squirrels, thousands of soda cans and distant rocks exposed in the mud at low tide, and I even missed a few seals with it. My preferred tool for ptarmigan when I was a kid was a 20 g