An unexpected "gift"........

[TOOL MAN]

Was out for a morning "trot", trying to burn-off some of the 28,000 calories, from my wife's Xmas Eve feast.
The road I run, meanders through a classic mix of mature hardwoods, long abandoned dairy frams and even an overgrown apple orchard that tucks up against the power line easment. Yup....any bird hunter, knows where this is headed.

As I reached the base of one of the larger hills...a nice piece of "bottom-land', as the farmers used to call it, the hair on the back of my neck, suddenly bristled. It was eerily quiet, one of those classic "grey" days that hunters dream about. How do you explain that visceral feeling one gets, a moment or two before game is spotted? Perhaps a few precious droplets, from the gene pool of our
Long-Hunter ancestors? Whatever it is, it's seldom mistaken.

I thought for sure, I had caught a deer trying to cross the road in front of me. I slowed to give a listen and peer into the thick underbrush. I took one, maybe two more steps, when I heard a faint rustle of leaves and that unmistakeable, dull roar of
a gamebird flushing from heavy cover. At first I thought, a hen pheasant, but as the bird reared-up out of the hollow, he banked hard-left, like an F-15, leaving a carrier deck. For that one, precious millisecond, I saw his reddish wings and tail feathers stretched out, like a Ripley oil canvas from long ago. A grouse!!!!! No; not the "oven-stuffer" roaster that Silvers encountered earlier this week....but a "pat" nonetheless. Have not seen or flushed one around these parts in over a decade. How cool is that? What an unexpected gift on this Xmas morn!!

Happy holidays to all------TOOL

[Researcher]

Great story Tool!! Buutttt..... F-15s are Air Force planes. F-14s (now retired) or F/A-18s fly off U.S. Navy carriers.

[Silvers]

A great story, my friend, thanks for sharing. I'm interested in this extrasensory stuff, and I'll offer that your hunter's "sixth sense" came to bear this morning. It might have been the faint rustle of leaves, almost or perhaps imperceptible, or maybe it was the dead silence that .... shouted. And despite the quick look you came away with a picture in your memory bank that 's probably more vivid than any Lynn B Hunt print.

Man has always hunted, and it's only in the past several thousand years that we learned to grow food. Before that, hunting successfully meant survival, and those that survived did it by honing their senses and instincts over countless generations. You had a wonderful experience today that no doubt came about from hunts long since gone and forgotten. Frank

[Stan Hillis]

That was the "fox" in your blood that came out today, Paul. Memories of rare specie sightings stay with you a long time. Like the only time I ever saw a black bear in the swamps here in Ga. Lots of them up in the mountains, but pretty rare down heah. i was about 10 years old, and fishing with Grandaddy, when he jumped in a slough and swam it, climbed out and shook off like a dog. What a sight!

Thanks for posting.

Stan

[TOOL MAN]

My bad, Dave!!! Guess you can tell, the closest I have been to a carrier deck, was watching TOP GUN or one of my real favorites......MIDWAY!!!!!-----TOOL