FAIL

I had a big ol' failure of a grouse hunting trip on Tuesday. My nephew has never shot a grouse, and I wanted to show him a good time. The plan was to head up to the Mille Lacs area, but once we got there I could tell we were in for a tough day. The 55-mile drive took over 2 hours due to snow, and we got my Exploder stuck when attempting to pull into the parking lot of the first WMA we were going to hunt.

After being pulled out by a guy in a monster truck we decided to stick to the main roads. I found some good-looking cover of conifers at the edge of a Poplar patch, but as soon as we got out of the car we found that the snow was over 3 feet deep. My nephew could barely walk through it and poor Bandit was practically swimming! Look at the picture above...you can barely see him! We hunted unsuccessfully for about 30 minutes before we had to call it a day.

The chili cheese fries at Hardee's did an adequate job of brightening my spirits. Sometimes we have to find joy in the little things.

This may be the end of my hunting season. Sunday is the last day I can legally hunt, and we've got yet another blizzard forecast for this weekend.

My hunting success, as well as my shooting, was remarkably sub-par this Fall. I'm hoping that additional training (for both Bandit and myself) will help to make next year more successful.