James Groseclose Memorial Pheasant Hunt -VI

Last Saturday, we celebrated the Sixth Annual James Groseclose Memorial Pheasant Hunt out at the Cooke Canyon Hunt Club.

You recall, no doubt, that our buddy Jim Groseclose (aka J1) suddenly went home just over six years ago – March 21, 2010 – during the Sweet Sixteen. Two weeks before that sad day, Jim Davis (J2) and I (J3) joined J1 on a James Gang Pheasant Adventure on some of the Cooke Canyon Hunt Club ground. We enjoyed an armed walk, through good pheasant cover, on a nearly perfect almost-spring day. His beloved Labs were in top form. Each year, during the Sweet Sixteen, we take an armed walk at Cooke Canyon in his memory.

Groseclose, of course, was founder and leader of the James Gang, with Jim Davis and me being J2 and J3, respectively. It jelled on a crisp November ‘07 morning, somewhere around 7:30, as we were driving up the north face of Manastash on I-82. As licensed HAM radio operators, we regularly checked in to the morning round robin network of HAMs across Kittitas County. That morning Groseclose checked the three of us in from his truck’s mobile radio. After he rattled off our three legal names and call signs, he signed us off, noting that we were heading to the Yakama Rez to chase birds with shotguns. Without hesitation, Gloria Sharp said, “Oh my God. The James Gang is armed and heading out of the valley!” And so it came to be.

Being part of the James Gang, chasing pheasants, ducks, quail and chukars with two great Labs and two true gentlemen added a richness to my life I had been missing since my days with my black Lab Freebe the Wonder Dog.

Freebe and I spent countless stolen hours (a couple at a time) afield during my quest for a Ph.D. in Geography and Meteorology at the University of Kansas decades back. That doctorate was my union card – my ticket – into a much-wanted teaching career in higher education. I was working full time and studying full time, and we paid a pretty price for the education. I won Freebe in a rigged drawing. I first figured I ended up with him just so he could ease our family stress. However, after many armed walks through quail and pheasant cover and hours in a duck blind, I realized he’d been sent by God to help me deal with the stress of full-time work and study and keep me tied to my wife and kids. He came to remind me of earth connections and the joy of being afield. He was the best four-legged human I’ve known, with an unmatched sense of humor.

For a few years, Freebe and I were members of the North Star Game Bird Farm in Colorado – similar in a lot of ways to Cooke Canyon – and we loved being able to spend days afield with pheasants before and after state seasons. In fact, it was on one of those hunts that I first realized that Freebe could chuckle – and was probably smarter than me. But, I digress.

This year, in honor of the pleasure J1 took in inviting good people to join a hunt, Chuck Morelius and Steve Loeb came along. Thus, last Saturday morning, J2 and I, our photographer (Honorary James Gang member Gloria Sharp – How not?), and Homey Bill Boyum and his German shorthair Maisy, assembled with our two guests at Cooke Canyon Hunt Club.

None of us, including Maisy the Magnificent, had been busting cover for some months, so we needed a little warm up wandering. Bill and Maisy quickly found their hunting rhythm, and with the exception of that one hasty and (mostly) unchallenged departure of a rooster, we did our part. There is something magical – sometimes almost breathtaking – about watching a pointer work the cover and the breeze, finding bird after bird as she was born to do.

Just after Noon, following a few final pictures, a round of thanks to Maisy and Bill, and words on behalf of our absent and always-missed James Gang leader, we retired to the Cooke Canyon Clubhouse. Following a Noon repast of Alice’s classic pheasant soup, cleaning of the birds to be shared with family and community, a couple possibly-true stories, and a few so longs, we took our leave.

Freebe would no doubt approve of Doug and Alice Burnett and their Cooke Canyon Hunt Club. Members pay an annual membership. Add in a handful of released birds and it still runs less than what it would cost to find a couple limits somewhere else in the state. Hunters choose a field, make a reservation, bring friends and dog (some are available) and take an armed walk. The Club has activities for military vets and kids, and you can find out more at www.cookecanyon.com or 509-933-1372.

The Sixth Annual Jim Groseclose Memorial Pheasant Hunt was a success, in all the ways we had hoped it might be. “Now,” J1 often said after our final hunt of the season, “it’s time to think about salmon fishing.”