I grew up in the mountains of Kentucky, rambling and playing in the outdoors. There were no computers and such . If you wanted to learn about anything like hunting it was by word of mouth or reading of outdoor magazines...and, of course, DOING. Lots of lore and even tall tales were told by the likes of my uncles. It sparked interest for me in the outdoors and hunting. I hunted squirrels a bit, even trapped for fur some. I read Outdoor Life and Field and Stream every time a new one came to the school library, especially the bird hunting stories I found there. I still have a copy of Outdoor Life with a story on Dixie grouse hunting, hunting grouse in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. The description had me riveted. I had read about grouse hunting before but nothing like this. It described the bird work of the dogs and the tremendous effort of the hunters to reach some of those wide mountain vistas. It got into my blood.
I had seen grouse out squirrel hunting. I still can remember the first grouse I ever shot. It was in 1977, and I was about 12. A buddy and I decided we would walk after some grouse in a hollow, walking distance from home. Funny to look back on. We chased them, sometimes ran after them in sneakers, in old overgrown poplar fields where hardy people had once worked corn fields back in the mountains on "flats" as we called them.
We learned that our Appalachian grouse tended to be high on the mountains. There were grape vines mixed in some of the likeliest cover, sometimes very thick . In years when there was a really good grape crop on those vines the mountainsides shone purple from a distance. This was so appealing to me, being in the woods , high on the mountains with all the views from the higher elevations.
I was really getting into this. Something about a grouse thundering away from these high mountain vineyards and old overgrown fields had created something I could never forget. I hunted with other people who had dogs a few times but it was not enough.
By the age of 15 I decided I wanted a dog. My mom got me a book by Joel M Vance, Upland Bird Hunting. I read about all the breeds in this book. My Dad finally came home in 1979 with a Brittany we named Steamboat Willie. He was from trial stock, and boy could he run. In fact, he ran over top of every grouse that we found that year! Not my cup of tea. I wanted setters like were pictured in the book of Mr Vance. In 1982, I finally talked my parents into another dog. A local had a litter and it was agreed I would get my first setter.
I knew nothing of training a dog so I bought the Delmar Smith training book written by Field and Stream's Bill Tarrant, Best Way To Train Your Gun Dog . This was Old School dog training (To this day, to my mind, the best school is still Old School). None of this "prey drive" stuff you read all about today. It's all about The Fire; dogs have The Fire within or they don't (that's another subject though). I later would learn from a book by Jack Stuart and eventually from an invaluable little paper back by John Rogers and Roy Strickland called Common Sense Grouse and Woodcock Training. Old school trainers as well, Stuart and Strickland.
Fast forward . I wanted to get better dogs as my first dog was not as good as I would have liked and compared to reading about good ones. I was developing some drive myself as I matured. With my first setter I ran him down more than once. The mountains are not forgiving. It takes a tough dog to hunt all day(7 or 8 hrs) and sometimes multiple days in a row. I got different dogs, different setters. As I hunted more and got to know the truely outstanding grouse hunters I saw real dog work. I even went with friend Herb to a grouse trial in Pennsylvania. It was the first running of the Invitational when it was still a "classic." I met good folks there. Some are still at it today.
I learned, and for me, always learning has always meant trying to get better.
By 1989 I had learned a lot, managed to get a few dogs pointing grouse but never kept any. I am hard to please. Many did not have enough point; some had a good enough nose, while others did not. A few would retrieve the birds I managed to knock down. But the key ingredient was this: they all lacked the grit and determination it takes to hunt day after day in Appalachia.
The real division, toughness, will show up on steep, slopes with uneven, rocky footing. Where I grew up ithere had been little surface mining so my hunting was walking, lots of it, up verticle rises through tangles and briars, often walking into a covert a mile of so from any road. We found birds in these deep dark hollows, and that was the motivator.
Not many men and women had the fortitude to do this on a regular basis with much success. The few that did take on the challenge were a hardy lot. Going back to the Outdoor Life article,it was written that there just weren't any grouse hunters over 40 yrs old. There is much in that staement.The elevation, terrain and ruggedness is what makes Appalachian grouse dogs and grouse hunters unique. Things have gotten a little easier with more roads into remote places and mining opening up some areas, but Appalachia still remains the toughest Eastern grouse hunting today.
I had read and heard of Llewellins, had even hunted with part Llewellins. Most that I followed seemed able to take on the mountain coverts the way I did. I wanted one. Eventually my search brought Awbonnies Bull into my life...and what I realize now were some of the true Golden Years of my mountain grouse hunting career.