Overview
Ever since rural-Minnesota lawyer Ted Lundrigan wrote about his
passion-the pursuit of ruffed grouse-in the now classic Hunting
the Suit, wingshooting readers nationwide have clamored for more.
At long last, here it is.
In Grouse and Lesser Gods, Ted takes you deep into the mysteries
and delights of his home coverts, all part of an extraordinary
piece of property-the Promised Land-that he now owns mid hunts.
You watch the field work of talented dogs like the English setter
Salty and the feisty Labrador retriever Dixie: thrill to the
explosive flush of the grouse and the erratic flight of the woodcock,
and panic as the noise bursting from the thicket in front of
you isn't your gun dog but an angry she-bear.
Above all, you will come to know the brooks and swamps that shape
and define Ted's Promised Land and his love of hunting. He writes
of such waters: "Through its myriad puddles and streams,
it creates a flying, bending, swishing projection of a water
brotherhood in the leafy places where men and grouse wander.
It is a way water has of going beyond the reach of its rivers."
When not practicing law, Ted Lundrigan hunts grouse and writes
stories under the pen name Ted Nel |
son. His stories have appeared in Shooting Sportman,
Pointing Dog Journal, Gun Dog, Wildfowl, Sporting Classics, and
in the anthology Bare November Days. His first book, Hunting
the Sun, was published by Countrysport in 1997. He and his family
reside in central Minnesota.
Bob White is an artist/ illustrator working in both watercolors
and oils, and a professional wingshooting and fishing guide.
His work appears in such magazines as Shooting Sportsman, Fly
Rod & Reel, Sporting Tales, and Gray's Sporting Journal.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Voices of Lesser Gods
Consider the ruffed grouse-that one single bird, its life with
a predictable end as a meal for another animal, rising like a
flower from a bulb and dying as autumn's kill. Its existence
as an individual might be over, but the garden continues on.
Not every bird dies; some individuals will survive. The grouse
is a lesser god of the weedy corners, disdaining all human help,
clothed in fabulous colors. Wouldn't he be just as useful as
a meal if he were plain as a sesame-seed bun?
I think the grouse is a voice. How could any of my children have
crossed the bridge from impossible to possi
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 ble without his
thundering flush and twisting turns? Or without the smell of
the fall woods, the display of color, the startling rise, and
the return of the messenger, loose and lovely in the soft mouth
of a bird dog. My children heard the message from a lesser god
telling them to listen to the voice in their heart that said,
"you can do it" and to ignore the noise that said "no."
Consider the bee, described as E. Annie Proulx sees him: "Flying
at the window, seeking to enter again the familiar world, but
walled off by a malignant force." Like my son, who-at age
fourteen-was struggling to be big as a man at six feet, with
strong shoulders but with eyes and hands that could not put the
shotgun and the bird together. He suffered through to the end
of a day in which he would miss, consecutively, eight woodcock
and ten grouse over flawless points. In the same day a companion
of his same age collected four of five grouse and declined to
even shoot at the woodcock. |
