Trouble proudly shows off with a woodcock for the camera.

We all run into circumstances that make us realize what a small world we live in, how so many of us are intertwined. This is especially true among bird dogs and bird dog people.

The most recent example of this small world thing occurred on a grouse and woodcock hunt in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. That's where Jim Clary of the lower part of the state was running his setter--Trouble. Turns out Trouble's mother was a granddaughter of Elwin Smith's outstanding Tomoka. But Jim bought Trouble from Dick Stroup.

Dick lives not far from me in Pennsylvania, plus Stroup bought a pointer pup from me back in the 1970s. He bought and trained the dog for Pete Burchfield, and today Pete hangars his Grumman Widgeon in the hangar opposite where I hangar my planes. Yes, it's definitely a small world! Trouble is a hard-driving, easy-to-love bundle of English setter.

He could sleep with me any night, but let's get to the area, the dogs and the bird hunting. Jim Buzzard and I drove from western Pennsylvania all the way to Curtis, Michigan on the UP in one day. Joe Coogan with Benelli was there, as was Joe's television film crew.

The idea was to get the background for Joe's TV show, Benelli on Assignment. The story that follows was my assignment for Gun Dog. For each Benelli on Assignment TV show Coogan takes an outdoor writer along--a writer who has a magazine assignment. Joe's television show, therefore, gives viewers an inkling of what it takes to get an outdoor magazine story.

Joe Coogan, his first ruffed grouse, one of the setters and the 20 gauge Benelli Ultra Light. Note grouse feather in Joe's hat.

Bill Jacobs was our guide. Joe had met Jacobs when doing another TV show in Florida involving Bill's operation, the "Treasure Coast Hunting & Fishing Club." Bill's members hunt and fish around Florida, but Bill takes a couple of weeks to drive to Curtis, Michigan every late September and early October to enjoy his passion, woodcock shooting, with ruffed grouse gunning thrown in for good measure.

The cover he selected for our first hunt was an omen of the covers to come, for it was thick, thick, thick, with lots of slash the timber cutters had left for us to trip over. There was almost no let-up in the difficulty of the walking for three days running. How the two TV cameramen lugged their huge cameras around was a fitting tribute to their endurance and dedication.

Despite the heavy cover (most of the leaves were still attached to their moorings) we did flush 12 to 15 grouse that first morning--not spectacular in the flush-rate realm, but certainly enough to keep the hunters and the dogs interested. Trouble was the star of the show, ranging wide, always looking good and picturesque as a portrait on point.

Tinker Bell is Bill's aging setter. He had her pretty much tuckered out from a long hunt the day before we arrived, so Jacobs rested her until the third day of our hunt.

I marked down that Trouble had six points, but I never touched off a trigger as it was just too thick. I was carrying a relatively new 12 gauge that would be a part of the TV show, the Franchi I-12 Upland Hunter. It was already light at about 6.3 pounds, but Coogan was asking advice on how to make it even lighter. Grouse and woodcock hunters always seem to be interested in light shotguns.