The James Gang at Cooke Canyon
Last Saturday, we held the Eighth Annual James Groseclose Memorial Pheasant Hunt out at the Cooke Canyon Hunt Club.
You may recall that our buddy Jim Groseclose (aka J1) suddenly went home just about eight years ago – March 21, 2010 – during the Sweet Sixteen. Two weeks before that day, Jim Davis (J2) and I (J3) joined him 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. We still miss him, and each year, during the NCAA Tournament, we take an armed walk at Cooke Canyon in his memory. Whenever we were around J1, a sense of impending adventure hung in the air – no doubt yet another reason for our annual memorial hunts.
Groseclose, of course, was founder and leader of the James Gang, with Jim Davis and me being J2 and J3, respectively. At 7:30 a.m. on a crisp November ‘07 day, we were driving up I-82 over Manastash. As licensed HAM radio operators, we had checked in to the Kittitas County round robin network. Groseclose checked the three of us out from his truck’s mobile radio, rattling off our three legal names and call signs. He had noted 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 was.
J3 and a rooster (Gloria Sharp photo)
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 grad school days with Freebe the Wonder Dog – a black lab who happened to be the best four-legged human I ever knew, with an unmatched sense of humor. (I first heard Freebe chuckle after I missed a bird at the North Star Game Bird Farm in Colorado. But, I digress…)
This year’s memorial hunt fell on another near-perfect almost-spring day. J2 and I were joined by his grandson, Doren Berg, and Gloria Sharp, Official James Gang photographer. Classic German shorthair Maisy brought her human, Homey Bill Boyum, to manage our bird-finding. We had arranged for the release of a mix of roosters and hens in our hunting unit.
Maisy waits on Doren and J3 (Gloria Sharp photo)
None of us had been busting cover for some months, but Bill, Maisy, and the rest of us quickly found our hunting rhythm. There is something magical – almost breathtaking – about watching a dog work the cover and the breeze, finding bird after bird as he or she was born to do. Maisy was near-perfection, and, with the exception of that one hasty and (mostly) unchallenged departure of a rooster, we did our part, too.
The last bird up was one of the hens. Maisy pointed it, I made the shot, and it hit the water (Water!?) 30 yards out. Maisy, who had flawlessly retrieved all our birds, danced back and forth along the edge of the cattails, put a foot of two in the water and looked at the bird floating in the middle of the pond in a skim of ice. “C’mon, Maisy,” I kept thinking, “get the bird! Freebe would already be back with it!” She just looked at me with those big soft brown eyes. I swear I could hear her thinking “Well, I’m not that ‘Freebe Whatever.’ I don’t do ice. Let me know how this works out for you…”
Human retriever in ice water (Gloria Sharp photo)
What could I do? Bill handed me the dog towel from the truck. Then he, Doren and Maisy went looking for that bird we had missed. Okay… Fine. Off with the boots, off with the pants, into the chest-deep ice water. As I grabbed the bird, I’m sure I heard J1 and Freebe cheering.
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 cleaning of the birds to be shared with family and community, a couple possibly-true hunting stories, and a few so longs, we took our leave.
I know Freebe would 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 unit (a field), make a reservation, bring friends and dog (some are available) and take an armed walk. You can find more at www.cookecanyon.com or 509-933-1372. (A membership and bird package will be on the block at next week’s Chukar Run banquet, by the way.)
The Eighth Annual James Groseclose Memorial Pheasant Hunt was a success, in all the ways we had hoped it might be – even if it was a little wet and cold for one of us. “Now,” J1 would say after our final hunt of the season, “it’s time to think about salmon fishing.”
