Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 8:51 pm Post subject: Grouse Moor Work
I'm very reluctantly writing this as I'd much rather would have stayed on top of the grouse moor and I'm pretty sure that my dogs would have loved to stayed forever rather than having to leave after 2 days on the moor.
Thanks to my lovely hosts I had some of the best days ever picking-up with my team of 5 dogs which worked their socks off. Weather wise it was the most fantastic weather with sunshine and light cloud Monday and burning hot on the Tuesday. Those sort of weather conditions made it even harder work for the dogs and by Tuesday lunch time I could tell that my dogs were pretty tiered, ranging too far out and not getting their noses down to the ground.
For those whom have never been on a grouse moor it is important to understand that this is truly hard work for dogs: this is all about covering huge amount of ground, hunting, hunting and hunting using their noses - you don't do 'lining up' simply because you don't know where 9 out of 10 birds drops. As the guns will shoot low both out in front but also behind towards where your're standing, you're spending most of the drives ducked down in safety trying to keep a count on any birds going over you with legs down.
My team of dogs were Grouse (couldn't possibly go up on a moor without bringing him ) Chilli, Baci, Baron and Stan (now king of the grouse moor). Walking up to the actual moor on the Monday was hard enough and I found myself thinking that this had all be a very stupid idea until I reached the top.
The work that goes into keeping a grouse moor is enormous and it's pretty simple: without grouse shooting there would be no moor! before the days of grouse shooting much of the uplands of England and Scotland were barren heaths covered in hawthorn, scrub birch and conifer with gorse, thistles and bracken with old, coarse heather. Only because of grouse has this massive amount of nature conservation taken place and are still happening to this day.
The days are long and we had a 5.30am start on the Monday to get there for 8.30am and by the time we were finished picking-up it had gone 6pm. None of my dogs had ever picked grouse but they had no problems about what to do:
Baci with one of these beautiful birds:
This evening I had the great pleasure of eating grouse - my brace were older birds so I decided to create my very own recipe:
Grouse marinated in 12 year old Balvenie whiskey and garlic and then cooked with mushrooms, pancetta, the whiskey marinade, cream, Dijon mustard and Blueberries with new potatoes....heaven!!!!!
Now I need to find myself a hut on top of the moors and live the rest of my life there.... A huge thank you to my hosts for fabulous company and food.
And to finish this off here's a picture of our dogs which we worked on the moors - 11 in total (although it's only 10 of them in this picture) and most of them actually related
Natasha
Last edited by Contender on Fri Aug 26, 2011 9:31 am; edited 2 times in total
____________
WLF All the Way!!!!
"Handle every stressful situation like a dog. If you can´t eat it or hump it. **** on it and walk away..."
Thanks Natasha for a brilliant report and photos. I've never hunted Grouse but I can understand that it has a romance all of it's own. The dogs look great amongst the flowering heather.
It sounds like you had a fantastic couple of days in that wonderful place and the weather cooperated! I wouldn’t want to be up there today! So nice to see the picture of Baci, with yet another one of his hats on, goodness me that dog gets about.
Dinner sounded rather good as well!!
I’m sure that last picture of the team sums it all up rather nicely, great shot
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You cannot download files in this forum
Grouse Moor Work
) Chilli, Baci, Baron and Stan (now king of the grouse moor). Walking up to the actual moor on the Monday was hard enough and I found myself thinking that this had all be a very stupid idea until I reached the top.
It's been a loooong day - spelling mistake corrected 
