Wingshooting

I’m not sure who first called it a Grouse Safari. It might have been Ed. But I do think it’s fitting. Just like hunters travel greater distances to pursue big game in Africa, a group of Southern Appalachian grouse hunters travelling several thousand miles to hunt grouse is an appropriate moniker. It’s something friends and I have been doing for about 20 years now.

As an American by birth and a Southerner by the grace of God, the pursuit for Bonasa umbellus, or ruffed grouse in particular and woodcock to a lesser degree, requires some commitment and travel to arrive to the promised land of hunting these game birds.

Bird-hunting season is just around the corner. Are you in shape? Upland wingshooting, especially on public lands, can be a workout. Bird hunters traipse through fields, marshes, woods and sloughs.

There are the great Silicon Valley legends of companies such as Apple and Hewlett-Packard getting their start in a humble backyard garage. So it should make complete sense that a producer of state-of-the-art wingshooting shells would get its start, not in an office, but on a duck hunt.

Recently someone told me that 2020 has been the strangest year ever. I added even though I spent part of my childhood along the Congo and in Sumatra, 2020 is still the strangest. Societal currents during the past eight months or so have been difficult for me to handle. Witnessing anger, depression, insanity and ideological polarity adversely affects one’s psychological well being. We have largely been stripped of our humanity and it all creates an aura of being trapped in a shrinking room. My refuge? The outdoors.