Make that a double, barkeep

For an upland bird hunter, making a double on grouse is the equivalent of hitting a homerun, kicking a 50-yard fieldgoal, or scoring a menage a trois.

It happens, but not very often.

Skill, of course, is involved, but so is luck. Both elements merged for me this morning on a blue-grouse outing.

Blue grouse have a knack for quickly disappearing into trees, so doubles are rare. Today, though, two blues flew out of the bottom of a side canyon with nothing between me and them but blue sky.

I kept my cheek pressed to the gunstock, swung smoothly through the shot, and two blues were on the ground. I picked up the closer one while Xena made a nice retrieve on the farther bird.

A little later she put up another bird (or maybe more) but I only heard it flush in the trees and never saw it. That's more typically the case with blues.

While a double is special, I've made enough that I don't remember many of them. However, my two triples are etched in deep memory. Both were on prairie birds with no trees to get in the way.

In 1984, my 9-month-old English setter Georgia went on point in the middle of a huge flock of sage grouse. About 20 birds rose at once, and I just kept pumping my Model 12 blam, blam, blam until three sage grouse were in the dirt. (Note: the limit was three back then.)

The next triple was two years ago when Xena went on point and three sharptailed grouse came up. The Model 12 gave a repeat performance, and I notched my second triple.

A lot of hunters use nothing but a double barrel shotgun. Unless they hit two birds with one shot (which can happen), they are limited to only the possibility of a double.

I'll take a triple whenever I can get one.