蔡自富的部落格

[This is a translation of this blog blog/%E8%94%A1%E8%87%AA%E5%AF%8C/2009_b-36.html for the benefit of Paul who can't read Chinese.]

I wanted to try hunting almost 20 years ago. I’ve even been to pheasant, goose, deer hunt but never got anything. The bottom line is hunting takes time, patience, and experience and I’ve got none.

This year’s economic downturn put me into a rare situation that, for the first time, I’ve got plenty of free time. This is what I’ve dreamed of and so I plan to take full advantage of it.

I started doing my homework and found the archery deer season has already started and many other major seasons were to open soon. So I hurried to get my hunting license from Concord town center. I paid $29 plus $5 more for muzzle-loader deer season stamp. And when I read the abstract closely at home, I realized I made a mistake – for this year, muzzle-loader season comes AFTER the regular shotgun season and it will be in the cold December. I gave up on the archery season as I haven’t practiced for years.

There are other events that I’m interested the earliest of which are pheasant and rabbit, and both started on October 17th. The state’s Wildlife and Fishery Department pan-raises the pheasant and will stock selected Wildlife Management Area at different frequencies usually once, twice, and 3 times a week through out the season. I found the information at http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/recreati ... _areas.htm and chose to visit the ones that are closer and stock more often.

The first one I scouted is Martin Burns WMA (http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/habitat/ ... rnswma.pdf) which is about 50 min drive. I printed the map, found the place, and took my car GPS with me. This WMA is almost 1600 acre in size and I didn’t see anyone else other than 2 workers fixing the road into the area. So I walked and walked and have covered no more than a small portion of it for 4 hours. I tried to cut through the forest to get back to the parking area, only to find the swamp too deep or the brushes too thick, often both in the same time.

I talked to the WMA manager and he claimed that area will stock 120 birds on Saturday and 80 each on Tuesday and Thursday. And the same goes to the other nearby WMA – Crane Pond. But he won’t tell me the exact time nor the location(s). With 1600 acres to cover, 120 birds could easily be regarded as needles in the haystack.

I visited Crane Pond WMA (http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/habitat/ ... ondwma.pdf ) next but I lost the courage to really explore, after spending 4 hours earlier in Martin Burns. The only thing I did was to mark the parking area on my GPS and watched a bit of 2 water-fowl hunters geared up and move in.

After the fiasco, I learned that larger isn’t always better. So I decided to go to Bolton Flats WMA (http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/habitat/ ... atswma.pdf ) which I’ve visited many years ago for pheasant hunt. It is ONLY 900 acres plus it is closer. I received my Delorme Earthmate PN-30 the night before, so I decided to see this sportman’s GPS is of any good. It has both driving mode and trail mode, so I used it as my car GPS. It lacks the voice prompts nor can it pronounce any street name, but it does work taking me from home to Bolton Flats.

I arrived around 10 in the morning on Friday. I tried to access from the first parking area, but encountered too much standing water and I didn’t have the right boots. Across the road of Rt 117, there is an unmarked parking area for the Southern part of the WMA. I went in and walked the grass, the bushes, and the cornfield. I dropped a few waypoints on my GPS so I can get back to easily.




The next parking area I visited was an otter heaven – lots of chewed-down tree trunks and has high water again. So I moved to the next one on the Northeastern side. Immediately I recognized the spacious parking lot as the one I’ve been to oh so many years ago. I went in.


Again, there was no one else in there and tomorrow would be the opening day. I walked for an hour and as I pulled out back to the parking lot, I met another hunter with dog. “We’ll hunt woodcock!” Paul said. “Mind if I tag along?” “No.”


So I went in for the second time with Paul and his bird dog. Paul lives in Concord which is next town to me and we used to work for the same company, except missed each other by 2 years. He has 25 years of hunting experience under the belt and very much into hunting dog training and is a judge for national-level competition. In short, there is a lot that I can learn from him.

Not very far into the field, the dog stopped. Paul thought it could be a rabbit or something so he walked over. Lo and behold, a hen pheasant flew up and away. Interesting! I thought they always release the pheasant the night before. “Not necessarily!” said Paul. The dog found 3 or 4 more pheasants along the way and at one point they cooed so loud Paul afraid Linus (his dog) might actually catch one.

Paul knows his way around the woods. He’s been hunting the same area for 20 years. Various trees and geo features indifferent to my eyes appeared like highway signs to him. I followed in the woods for 2 hours and Linus found (or, pointed) 13 woodcocks. In many situations the spaces were too tight with all those trig and branches in the way.

Woodcock is both alert and fast flying, it is agile and also seem to know how to pick the best escape route. A true sporting bird to hunt. If it weren’t for the dog, woodcock might just be impossible to hunt. I flushed one by accident and couldn’t even follow it with my eyesight. With a gun? Forget it!


So this is how bird-dog comes into the picture. Linus is very energetic and was running around almost non-stop for the entire time. I’d guess he covered 10 times more area than Paul and I did. And with a keen nose, we combed the area pretty thoroughly.


“This dog is very honest!” Paul said.
“Honest?” I laughed. “That is a very strange description of a dog!”
“Well, a lot of dogs would just stop when they are tired. They’d pretend there is a prey.”

So I learned my first lesson about bird-dog.

“But why wouldn’t the birds fly away when the dog is approaching?”
“The wildlife has an instinct of staying still when danger approaches. And unless it is absolutely necessary, many of them would rather walk than fly.”

So that is why a bird-dog could be on-point and wait patiently for the master to finish it off, without worrying too much it might scare away the prey.

I also learned the protocol between the dog and its master. The dog wears a bell so when it is running around, the master knows where it is. When the bell sound stops, there can only be because Linus
1. found a prey and is on-point
2. is too far away

And when there is no more bell ring, Paul would yell “I’m here!” or “What you got?”. When Linus hears it, he’d run toward us if he is not on-point. “A good dog would stay with the bird until it flies away.” Paul said. So the biggest danger is to lose the dog when it is on-point too far away. And that is why the master cannot be too far behind the dog.

Paul seems to be very happy with Linus. “To most hunters, it is good if he has a good dog in his lifetime. And I have 4 already!” He is a good dog trainer and a judge for national hunting dog events. His dog is also quite special – Linus has a German ancestry. It can be traced back to the first pair Paul brought over from Denmark when he immigrated into American.

We exchanged emails and made an appointment to hunt together next Tuesday.