How Not To kill a Grouse

This piece was published in the Silverton Standard on Thursday, October 27th 2022

Every year, come autumn, I reluctantly purchase a small game hunting license. I wouldn't describe myself as hunter, but I do love good food and the best way to get it is to get it yourself. After a summer full of huckleberries, plums and chanterelles I figured I should take my shotgun for a walk.

I've been an erstwhile hunter for about five years, taking my shotgun into the mountains after work or before class, or spending the occasional day off stalking logging roads for grouse. Like everyone, I have a favorite spot or two, places I'm loyal too even if they don't produce for a year or three. This year, I went back to my favorite logging roads full of optimism and dreaming of roast fowl and slow cooked broth.

The clean morning light shown through the first yellow in the aspens as I opened my truck door, immediately flooded with memories of hailstorms and afternoons of crashing through current bushes and steep groves of spruce. It was here that I wrote my first good poem, killed my first bird and saw for the first time the majesty of the San Juans in fall color. My 20 gauge was lighter in my hands than it was before, which I noticed as I ducked aspen logs and hiked deeper into the woods.

As I approached the border of the spruce forest I slowed down and remembered a passage from my friend Steve Myer's book lime creek odyssey, a passionate reminder of how the forest does not look like a cathedral, but vice versa: that human innovations typically fail in their imitation of nature. Steve's words filtered through my head as I crested a small hill, nearing a thimbleberry patch that often fed crowds of dusky grouse. Taking shallow breaths, I walked slowly and deliberately towards the tall pines now thick and fragrant with the first sunlight. I held my gun tight, imagining the small blue forest chickens pecking at the ground as I came into view. Then, Of course, there was nothing. The thimbleberries were long gone and all sign of the birds was weeks old, at least.

It was here, years ago, that I had snuck up on a flock of grouse with my then-roomate, watching them stand oblivious as we made our plan, shouldered our guns and smoked four of them at once: some left flapping on the ground, some winged mid flight and plummeting to the undergrowth in clouds of feathers.

That memory fresh in mind, I spent the afternoon walking. I went far up the road and back through the woods, sliding on mossy logs and tearing through brush, ultimately unsuccessful. It was when I reached the car, tired and defeated, that I realized why I had driven the whole way out there. The secret spot had been dry for a few years, and it was later in the season than I usually went, but that didn’t matter. In fact, I probably didn’t need a gun to get what I was looking for, it was just an excuse. An excuse to see the place that taught me to love the woods, to walk slowly and see the texture of the undergrowth and show me the true character of these unique mountains. In a way, it was a place to go home too.