This is, and will always be a fishing column. Bear with me. November means “hunting season” for many Michiganders, especially in rural hunting communities like ours. I used to do a fair amount of hunting in November, including firearm deer hunting. Through the years I have evolved in my outdoor pursuits and that has resulted in far less deer hunting. I used to sit in a deer blind or tree stand for hours waiting for deer to walk by. It has been several years since I have deer hunted in this way. I don’t miss it. I find it unlikely I ever return to hunting this way.

When I have deer hunted in the last several years it has been tracking deer or hunting by canoe in the North woods. While I enjoy that style of hunting, I just don’t have that much time to partake. For me it requires snow on the ground for tracking but not too cold to float the rivers I like to float. I am certainly not done with these styles of hunting. Merely a pause until the right opportunity knocks. I do enjoy a walk in the woods though. Enter upland bird hunting and with it some classic fall fishing.

I will spare the details on the upland bird hunting I have done. I have deep respect for native upland birds like grouse and woodcock. Grouse are king of the North woods. I cannot say I prefer them over woodcock. That would be comparing apples and oranges despite the fact they live in the same places. Woodcock are special. They are awkward, mysterious, and whimsical. I have a woodcock mounted in my home. It was one of three that day I had taken locally after what I believe was the best upland hunt I may ever experience.

This year, a friend and I took our annual “Up North” bird camp trip. I wrote about the same trip last year. It is a bit of a misnomer. In the back of my mind I am always way more prepared to fish. Last year I shot a beautiful gray phase ruffed grouse my friend’s pointing lab put up for me. I had skinned the grouse and cured the skin with feathers attached. Within two weeks of that trip last year I tied several soft hackle flies for use on our 2025 Bird Camp trip. I gifted a box to my friend for the use of his cabin, and several for me.

Bird Camp 2025 happened last weekend. Last Saturday we decided to hunt for a little bit, break for some fishing, and then fish another spot on the way to a Trout Unlimited dinner later that evening. I harvested two woodcock before we pulled out of the woods that morning and headed for waters known ready to fish.

As my friend needed to mow the lawn, part of the deal of cabin ownership, I decided it was time to swing soft hackles into pristine trout water hoping for native brook trout. As I tied the soft hackles onto my line, one a partridge and orange, and the other a yellow version of the same, I was immediately brought back to the grouse I harvested on this same trip from 2024. The meal of that bird was long forgotten, but not its feathers. They will remain. After swinging these flies through several riffles, I found a pod of brook trout, catching several. All of them on my partridge and orange soft hackle. I could have kept fishing those flies in that river. I could go into detail about how we enjoyed woodcock with our breakfast scramble. I could tell you about how the fishing went at the next spot we visited. Maybe another time. All great experiences. None will do justice compared to the feeling from swinging those flies for those brook trout.

I am a week removed from that trip. I wonder how these woodcock, and their myriad feathers for fly tying, from 2025 will impact our 2026 Bird Camp trip. I can only imagine it will happen in a way befitting a woodcock and a brook trout.