Two years ago I hunted in Vermont and wrote about it in a little article, "Season Opener 1996." I didn’t go to Vermont last year since the snowfall came so early that there was no woodcock season to speak of. This past September I was judging a NAVHDA test at new testing grounds that Phil Thayer had found near his new home. During the test we flushed plenty of ruffed grouse and Phil suggested that I come up for the opening day and hunt for woodcock and grouse. Who could say no?

October rolled around and I packed the car with the dogs, clothes and shotguns and we were off to the Northern Central Vermont to find some birds. Phil is a service technician for fax machines and copiers and his territory covers about a hundred square miles. While driving around to visit various clients Phil will inspect the landscape and pick out the most prominent places for woodcock and grouse. When the hunting season comes around Phil will put one of his dogs in the car and bring his hunting gear with him, and during the lunch hour he will hunt the covers he has found earlier in the year. Phil has identified about 70 individual covers, varying in size from a few acres to several dozen acres. Phil couldn’t join me so I was furnished with a map with x-s all over indicating the covers that Phil believed would have the greatest prospects for morning and afternoon hunts.

I started out Saturday morning and hunted all-day and even though I had flushed a couple of birds they were not as plentiful as we had seen them during the September test. The reason was possibly that the weather was still too warm and the grouse had gone to higher grounds and no woodcock flights had come in from the north. By 4 o’clock in the afternoon I still did not have a bird in my bag. I started out in a new cover and just before we reached the boundary Appi goes on point. Up came two woodcocks and I swung on the bird that went to the right only to find myself looking right into the sun. No bird! Out of the sides of my eyes I had seen the direction in which the other bird flew so Appi and I went to hunt him up. Within a minute Appi was on point again and we got that bird. I felt more comfortable now since I didn’t get skunked on opening day. We were moving back to the car and Appi goes on point again and the second bird was in the bag. Continuing on towards the car Appi goes on point for the fourth time and I missed that bird. I had a good location for its landing and brought Appi into the bird in good wind and we got our day’s limit.

Sunday morning I started out in one of the areas where I had seen birds on Saturday. I had not gotten any since the woodcocks flew between the nearby houses and me. I didn’t want to spray the houses with pellets. I also had had a wild flush on a grouse. Sure enough not more than 20 yards from where I had flushed the grouse on Saturday Felix goes on point and the first grouse was in the bag. We visited several other covers during the day and collected our limit of woodcock so we said goodbye to Phil after having had a great weekend. Phil’s place is about 220 miles from my house and I traveled 216 miles between covers over the weekend!

During my bird hunting trip Phil invited me up for the opening of the deer season so I arrived at Phil’s house Friday evening and discussed strategy for the Saturday morning opener. When I was parking my car at the spot where I was to enter into the mountain range I got to talk to another hunter who told me that he got an eight point buck in those mountains last year. It was 6:30 AM and we wished each other good luck. He went straight across and I followed the path to where Phil thought there might be a good possibility for success since the deer would have to cross the brook there if they were being pushed from the other side. At 7:25 AM I heard gun shots from the other side of the brook and I was ready to take on whatever would come across. Nothing came across and later that day I learned that my friend from the morning had bagged a nine (5/4) point buck! The buck dressed out to be 192 pounds. He has to be one of the luckiest guys around.

In the afternoon I crossed the brook and searched the mountain areas and when it was getting dark due to overcast skies I started moving back towards my car approximately 15 minutes after sundown. At 26 minutes after sundown I was sliding down a gravel road cut between the tall trees when I looked up and there about 80 yards in front of me was a big dark shadow looking right at me. I swung the rifle up but before I could get the scope to the eye "He" had jumped into the cover. Just as with fishermen when they talk about the one that got away, "Let me tell you he was a BIG BUCK, possibly a ten or twelve pointer!"

You can possible guess where I was hunting Sunday morning but I had no luck. As a matter of fact nobody seemed to have much luck on Sunday on our mountain. There was plenty of activity around me by the effervescent squirrels, which were busy saying good day to a new day and collecting forage for the winter. The chickadees were chirping and flying from tree to tree to find morsel of sustenance. So after having posted for about three hours and watched these foraging animals I decided to explore the mountain. On the west side of the mountain ridge that I had scaled during the morning I found a large plateau on the eastern side of the Butternut Ridge. Five beaver ponds strung out like pearls on a string where the early settlers had once had their fields occupied this plateau. I hiked up on the lowest section of the Butternut Ridge and found a nice wood stump from where I had a great view towards the east and all the mountaintops around. Through the hardwood trees, which had lost most of their leaves I could see the sun sparkle in the beaver ponds below. Only the beech trees still had most of their leaves and they were shimmering in the breeze. From across the way I hear the woodpecker do his chiseling. I later found his tree. It had to have been a pileated woodpecker because the hole in the dead tree was 4 by 8 inches in size and about five inches deep. No wonder that I could hear this work from so far away. What a peaceful spot this was. After about half an hour of taking it all in I descended the ridge and continued searching for deer signs in the areas around the beaver ponds when a woodcock let me know that I was disturbing its lunch.

I searched for signs on the opposite side of the ponds and I found the location of the farm that once stood there. The stone wall foundation was three feet thick, and the barn had measured 40 by 70 feet. It must have had two levels and possibly a hayloft because there was a stone-encased gravel ramp leading up into the air as if it could have connected to a bridge into the second story of the barn. The foundation for the main house was across the "road" and about 100 feet to the north was the remains of the vegetable cellar where the farmer may have kept his vegetables for the winter. There was an area of about 100 by 200 feet between the buildings that may have been yard and vegetable garden. There were also some old apple trees still standing which are now being enjoyed by the grouse population some of which I flushed near the end of the barn. The fields would have been all to the west of the buildings and the family had a great view of the Butternut Ridge range that also protected them from the winter storms. Huge stone fences lined the fields and I found weasels playing in the crevices between the individual stones. What a great place it must have once been but it clearly must also have been very hard to eke out a living because it was left many years ago. There are no signs of any wood-structures so it is possible that the owners may have taken the pole-barn and the main-house down and used the materials somewhere else. Inside the foundations are today growing trees with trunks that are up to one foot in diameter. It was a wonderful place to sit and reflect about what once was. There is no place like New England where one can find hidden forgotten history. Next time when I am in Vermont I will visit the town hall and see if I can obtain some more information about this farmstead that was once located on what is still considered a class 4 road in Vermont.

After having spent my time romanticizing about the past I continued still-hunting and also staked out a fresh buck scrape for the last two hours of shooting light. I didn’t see anything and neither did anybody else on the mountain because I didn’t hear any shooting that afternoon. But next weekend I am going to connect with the BIG BUCK. I may even for good luck engrave the words on a bullet with which I will load the gun next Saturday morning.

P.S. The BIG BUCK didn’t keep the appointment with me neither did he visit with any other hunter the following weekend. But next year!