At some point in everyone's life they have been asked the question "If you could spend a day with any person from history whom would you choose?" At this point we usually blat out the name of some famous athlete, politician, celebrity, or war hero from days gone by. We then are asked to justify this response in which we respond with some form of hair brained answer devoid of much or any real meaning. I am no exception to this rule and have many times answered the question poorly. Perhaps I feared an esoteric response would in some way be regarded peculiar or even the slightest bit pretentious; and so I rendered generic responses forfeiting the opportunity granted my creativity by the proffering of this question. Nonetheless I like to consider myself a student of life and one whom learns from the errors of his ways; so I shall give you a more thoughtful and honest answer to the aforementioned inquisition. If I could spend a day with one person from it would be Burton Spiller. This name probably means nothing to most people. Burton Spiller was a man from Maine who grew up one town over from mine roughly a hundred years ago. He spent his entire life living working and most importantly bird hunting in the region we both call home. In addition to being a New Englander, lifelong hunter, and general salt-of-the-earth man, he was a writer. Burton Spiller is considered the poet laureate of grouse hunting. Through his works the hands of time have reached out and connected our two otherwise mutually exclusive lives. Without reading Burt's books I'd still be a bird hunter just as he would have been, but through his tales I've found a deeper and even more meaningful connection to the sport and the place I've come from.
Despite the surely many nameless differences between us I find that there remain more than a few uncanny parallel's. Foremost our mutual admiration and borderline religious fanaticism with the king of the woodlands, his majesty the ruffed grouse, followed closely by the passionate relationship between a man and his dog. I'd read several of Burt's books and had known he had grown up somewhere coastal Maine but it was not until recently that I learned how close in proximity to my own home that had been. Upon acquiring this information the glorious autumnal woods around me took on a profound and entirely new mystique. With each covert I explored and hunted I now wondered if perhaps I was not only figuratively but literally walking in the footsteps of Mr. Spiller.
It was with this thought in my mind that I took to the woods on a Saturday eager to experience the thrill of the hunt with my new-found sense of nostalgia and historic connection. I left my driveway and confidently turned towards the direction of Wells (the the town from which Mr. Spiller hailed). I made my way along the back roads appreciating what was left of the fall foliage after the week-long wet spell. My exact destination was not clear but I knew that it would be in close proximity to a "Spiller's Farm" a small family run farm that I was now 100% convinced shared a connection to my historic tutor. At the farm there was a pumpkin patch and corn field and an apple orchard where I'd spent many afternoons as a small child (and I hoped now that he had as well). Before reaching the farm I began looking along the roadsides for likely places to begin my hunt. Finally after some driving I discovered a gas line that had some promising looking cover on either side. I pulled over uncased "Mrs. Rose" my trusted old 12 gauge Fox-sterlingworth side by side and loaded it with #7.5 in the right barrel and a high brass #8 in the right and snapped it close with a satisfying "click".
The air was warm but not uncomfortably so as I strolled off of the gas line and into a field that sloped southward. the bottom of the field was dotted with islands containing ancient apple tree's, aspens, tangles of bittersweet, and raspberry vines. I eagerly pushed through them, but they produced nothing. I then walked along the edge of the field into a swampy area thick with spruce white pine and the occasional cedar. It didn't look all too promising but I sallied forth and kept my chin up. I was pushing through some thick clumps of white young pines now the better part of an hour deep into my hunt when I heard his drum. "Bingo!" I said aloud. I knew that somewhere just north of where I was pacing, up a small but steep incline was my quarry. My minds eye saw him there strutting proudly on some hollow rotting log pounding out his triumphant challenge. His cockiness would surely be his undoing I thought to myself silently with an ironic sense of self confidence.
Upon my approach towards his perch, I heard that familiar thunder of wings as he alighted, presumably for thicker cover. He hadn't flown far though, of that I was sure. I made my time circling around to opposite side of the knoll, thinking I'd give the drummer an opportunity to simmer down. Upon reaching the opposite edge there came a second (less explosive) but still galvanizing hammering of wings. My right barrel sounded as the lone bird flew away low and true back into the swamp. I took the bait and made chase. Mr. Ruff flushed again some thirty or so yards ahead of my boots, again flying low and giving me only a fleeting glance at the royal tail feathers. I snapped the gun to my shoulder sliding off the safety as I did so, knowing all the while that the effort was a fruitless one. I made a large swoop circling into the swamp hoping to head off the bird and prompt a flush in the favor of my gun. However the bird seemed to be untraceable, as is often the case when hunting without the company of a partner with superior olfactory abilities. I made my way back to the knoll and began pushing towards the side opposite the swamp. The pucker brush there was sinfully thick and I struggled to make my way through it. I paused for a moment to catch my breath and began curiously eyeing a particularly birdy looking bit of brush to my left. Ignoring my predatory intuition (as I far too often do) I stepped away from the probable tangle and headed towards my predetermined destination. I'd no sooner put my foot down, when the large bird erupted from that particularly precarious bit of pucker-brush now behind my left shoulder. It thundered up towards a small derelict cemetery. I saw him only momentarily and not enough to put a good bead on him. I decided he'd landed in the trees as I hadn't detected any noise indicating his descent.
I trudged through the ensuing brambles and brush for almost another half hour without stirring another bird. I then returned to the cemetery and gave the tree's a final glance before tipping my hat to the birds as if to say "you've won this one". As I strolled back through the woods I couldn't help but think again that perhaps Mr. Spiller had hunted this same covert. Perhaps the great great ancestors of those several grouse I'd been bested by, had also bested Burt. I mused to myself as I broke down my gun at the car, that those birds must surely posses superior genes if their ancestors had managed to escaped from the great B. Spiller. This whim did a remarkable job of sobering my sore feelings about my lack of luck. I then piled into my car and drove for home, feeling lucky (as I so often do) to have had the opportunity to spar with such a noble and worthy adversary.
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