Bodhi was my first bird dog. My first bird dog, not my dad’s that is. As a Bodhisattva should do, he graciously gave up his path to enlightenment so that others may attain it, mostly so that I may strive to attain enlightenment. We returned to Bodhi’s favorite spot for blue grouse this year, to find many others already hunting his hallowed grounds. Being one who doesn’t like change, this had me reeling wondering what to do. We quickly found change and decided, with considerable trepidation to hunt a spot down the road to his and my favorite spot, a spot which we had never been to before, but was at least free from other hunters. After all, this is public land, they had as much right to be there as did we, and they had beat us to the spot on Opening Day of Grouse Season, so it was all done fair and square. Remy, Bodhi’s grandson, didn’t seem to mind, as he is still a pup himself, he didn’t know any better, or at least he tried to persuade me so. I, on the other hand, knew better—that this spot could not be as good as our favorite spot which we had enjoyed for so many years. We headed off up the mountain, but at least it was the same mountain as Bodhi’s Spot was on, so who knew what might await us.
To our surprise, we found grouse. A lot of grouse. Dusky grouse (formerly known as Blue Grouse) here and dusky grouse there. And we made a new spot our own, it would never be Bodhi’s Spot, but this one became Remy’s spot. Perhaps Remy will lay there some day in the future, as Bodhi does in his spot now, for it was that good, and Remy came into his own in this new spot. My hunting buddy, his dog, and my other Brit, Emile, also had a couple of great days there now, and while it hasn’t replaced the memories of Bodhi’s spot, it has added to it. I hope to take my girls there someday soon and show them what the mountain has to teach us, as the same mountain showed us the way before with Bodhi leading the way, in a place we all found aplenty of nature’s bounty. My daughter is much the same way as the pup, she is happy to discover the new adventures, places I find harder to explore though they sometimes result in better adventures, as proved the point here, as the early-bird hunters in my hallowed place of Bodhi’s had failed to find birds, while we had a great time with plentiful birds gracing us to show us their wings.
Bodhi traveled to 14 states and hunted as many species. He traveled by air several times. The baggage check girl reluctantly checked my cases broken in half side by side then said he couldn’t stand in his crate. I said look at him he’s standing and he’s probably been to more states than you in it. She said he’s ducking his head. I had to have another crate brought to the airport within an hour. It made got be worse with arrows or an AR if during deer. I might likely drive this time.
