Fox Collectors

Beautiful place the PA mountains! Very dry all over NY also, but the grouse and woodcock numbers are up considerably from last year. Maybe the dry summer helped both the grouse and turkey chicks survive to adulthood.

For my friend Stan and others interested in this year's drought. Two pics of the "Bubble Up" taken late October '19 and yesterday. This is mainly drainage from an old mine slope that's still used by some mountain people. The water has some dissolved iron content (think Geritol as in old time TV commercials). You'll see the black fill-up pipe on the lower right of each pic is still flowing this year though the main run is mostly dry. Also note the difference in leaves still on the trees, still fairly thick and hard to hunt. No Stan, I didn't hunt there yesterday. I checked the reverting apple orchard there last month but the trees don't have any fruit this year. frank

Frank, great pics and description. I’m always reminded of the different coverts/cover grouse utilize when I see pics from different places. In MI it’s aspen/popple stands mixed w/maple shoots along with food sources or mixed cover w/evergreen along stream beds. Just goes to show how adaptive grouse can be. Thanx!

Frank my son and I found grouse in the hardwoods that had thick stands of green ferns this year, flushed 9 grouse of such cover and the ground was damp. All our woodcock have been in the alders along stream beds.

Thanks Craig, I have a few spots with thick ferns in mind and will try them next time I'm out. I often find nipped ferns in the crops of birds I've taken but usually just random pieces eaten while foraging. frank

You're going to have a lot of bluebirds next year.

Looking at those pics Frank I would'nt have to even flush a bird to enjoy a walk in those woods. You are a lucky man to have that habitat available to you. Thanks for taking the time to show us those interesting sights.

Frank your 2 photos illustrate precisely what we encountered the first week in October up in NY State regarding water flow and leaf cover. Thanks, Kevin

Frank,
That is one sweet Krag.
-Matt

Thanks Matt. I was fortunate to find her.

I realize that I failed to thank you, Frank, for posting those two pics of the "bubble-up". Somehow, I missed the early opportunity to do so. Please accept my apology.

Amazing how dry it is, and how much longer the leaves stayed on the trees there, this fall. That is just a very pretty place, IMO.

I realize it's been about 6 weeks since you posted that, so I hope by now y'all are getting the much needed rain.

Good luck hunting, SRH

Thanks Stan, I thought you'd like the pics. We've had plenty of rain over the past 2-3 weeks and beaver dams that were pretty low are now flowing over. Grouse hunting hasn't been the best this year and as of Thanksgiving I'd taken only 3 grouse. Also scored 4 cock birds while walking to and from some covers. Our second split for ducks came in about two weeks ago and I got some quackers too with a Fox and new to me Pahkaah. Grouse is closed right now during deer season and we'll get another week for birds starting in about mid December, not sure of the dates.

Just for interest, those mountains were timbered off in about 1900-10 and the virgin white pine and hemlock were skidded and then railroaded to a big double line sawmill now all but forgotten and with buildings long gone, but many huge stumps could be found in the woods when I started hunting the area in my teens nigh on 50 years ago. I remember wondering how long they'd last. Here are two pics taken just before Thanksgiving while out for grouse. They are different stumps. About 110 years and still marking those trees and and the men who labored there. frank

Frank,
Awesome pics and I truly do love that straight gripper you often carry into the grouse woods. As a forester by trade I can definitely appreciate the history lesson and it takes me back to my college years in Central PA...while out for our dendrology field courses our professor (who was quite familiar with that neck of the woods) would often take us to previously logged sites that were timbered near the turn of the century to show us the stumps that remained from the massive American Chestnut trees cut there 100 years prior. I sure would love to see what Penn’s woods looked like way back when....
-Matt

Good luck deer hunting, Frank.