The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 14

fay) "I UK COL'HIKK-JOl R.WL X- 1 1 I.OUSUUJ', K. siM)i unpreaic Is shooter ever really ready? By JOE TOM ERWIN, Courier-Journal Times Special Writer Hunting table; I i i 1 BY 7 Mf3t fif We turned down the valley in the direction Randy thought the other three birds had gone. Almost immediately we again heard grouse flushing ahead of us, but always too far away to shoot and usually too far to see. We finally saw one bird put down near the top of a hill. Bruce and I climbed almost to the spot, and while I stood panting, holding to a tree to keep from sliding back to the valley, a hen bird came out of a laurel bush.

She rose to the tree tops and sailed over me. I shot too quickly and missed and by the time I got a second shot off, the bird was too far off. I mumbled some lame excuses about being out of breath and unused to shooting in such dense thickets and asked if one were ever really ready when a grouse flushed. Randy and Bruce grinned. We had gone but a short distance along the side of the hill when another cock grouse came hurdling off the ground from under a small white pine, not more than a dozen steps ahead of me.

I fired two quick shots, neither of which cost the bird a feather. I didn't even offer excuses this time. At least he walking is easier After two more birds flushed far ahead of us, I had another opportunity for a kill when Randy flushed a bird and it crossed ahead of me above the trees. My confidence was so shaken by this time that I must have shot a good six feet back of him. We covered two long narrow valleys the next hour, Randy and Bruce on the MURRAY, Ky.

As a quail hunter, I've always bef a little smug when I'd talk with pheasant, duck and grouse hunters, figuring that anyone who had grown up shooting quail could hit those big birds with his eyes closed. I've had a few bitter lessons to the contrary on duck hunts this winter, and hunting grouse last weekend at Morehead I was not only humbled but humiliated. My first grouse hunt was arranged when I asked Dr. Nan Ward of Murray State's Physical Education Department if she knew someone at Morehead (she grew up there and was on the Morehead faculty for years) who would lake me hunting the weekend Murray played basketball there. She declared she would oblige when she went home for Thanksgiving vacation by contacting one of the best grouse hunters in the state, Randall Wells.

Hunt arranged, I bummed a ride to Morehead Saturday night after the Murray-Eastern Kentucky game with Dr. Ward and her mother, Mrs. Marjorie Karrick. After a breakfast of country sausage, eggs, grits, three kinds of jellies and two-story biscuits, prepared by Mrs. Karrick, I met Wells and Bruce Harris, also of Morehead, at 9 a.m.

at the Wells home. They're veteran grouse hunters As we drove the 15 miles to the scene of our hunt in Wells' four-wheel-drive panel truck, I pumped the two for information on grouse hunting. All their answers began: "Well, they sometimes" and ended "but on the other hand." The consensus was that the only predictable thing about grouse wis that they were unpredictable. ells, a native of Morehead, has hunted grouse since Kentucky's first season on them in the 1940's. Harris, who came to Morehead from Pennsylvania 12 years ago, has been hung up on the sport since then.

After several miles over roads that only four-wheel-drive vehicles could travel, we parked on top of a mountain and Randy announced our hunt would begin there. He suggested that Bruce and I go down one side of the slope with Bruce's 10-year-old English setter, Ranger, while he and his 12-year-old dog, Lou, also an English setter, went down the other. A booming sound grouse! As we began our descent of the steep, mountain-laurel covered slope, we found the shady trees still covered with about an inch of the previous week's snow. A native flat-lander, I had eased myself from tree to tree for about a hundred yards when a booming sound, something like distant thunder, came from ahead of us. Bruce announced it was a grouse flushing.

Before we reached the valley, two other birds flushed ahead of us, both too far away to be seen in the thick un-derstory. Just before we reached the valley, we heard Randy shoot one time, and as we arrived breathlessly, he announced that four grouse had flushed ahead of him and he had taken a wild shot at the last to rise. We headed in the direction where he thought "his" bird had put down. We had gone some 300 yards, halfway up a hill, when Ranger pointed in a clump of laurel. We had surrounded the bush when a big cock grouse came roaring out, nearest to me.

After I recovered from the thundering flush, I swung on the bird, but as I pulled the trigger he darted behind a treewhich I filled with shot. Randy and Bruce both fired after that but the bird was out of range and rising to top the hill. Photo by Joe Tom Erwin HUNTERS Randy Wells (left) and Bruce Harris sit a spell to give Harris' English setter Ranger a chance to rest before climbing the final hill to the truck after a day's grouse hunt. killing about every third bird. I didn't pursue the topic.

Randy and Bruce suggested we try again when Murray played at Morehead next winter. I accepted and invited them to Murray for a quail hunt next fall. When Randy, a close follower of More-head's basketball fortunes, dropped me off at my motel, he asked me to tell coach Cal Luther he hoped his Murray basketball team shot baskets against Morehead like I shot grouse. I muttered, "Wait till next year." hunted. Despite a walk of some two miles through beautiful grouse cover, we didn't flush a bird.

Bruce and I stood talking and admiring the beauty of the valley while Randy covered the final 200 yards of our planned hunt. We took inventory and decided we had raised between 15 and 20 birds during the 4 12 hours we had hunted, considerably more than on most hunts, according to Randy. He said about two grouse an hour was the usual ratio. However, he said on most hunts you could count on Randy's side of the valley, but when he went forward to flush, the grouse ran through a clump of laurel and flew, leaving Randy only a wild, throw-away shot. We retraced our steps to the foot of the hill on which the truck was parked.

We stretched out on some dry grass in the sun and ate lunch. I was careful not to make any abrupt movements that would bring on the muscle cramps that were threatening in my tired legs. After about a 30-minute rest, we headed down the end of the valley we hadn't yet sides of the hills, I on the valley floor where the walking was easier. Just as we were about to turn back toward the truck, three birds flushed ahead of Randy. He saw the direction the last bird took and we followed.

Lou pointed the bird on OPEN DAILY 10-10; EXCEPT SUNDAY British cover shooting rather different crtoi GOOD THRU WED. Pheasant shoot reaps 1,300 birds in day STANDARD DUTY 01 2 FOR 787 lient, extroverted and charming, Col. Smail was also the most efficient organizer I've met in years. The commandant of the local territorial regiment, he saw to it that arrangements rendezvous with the beaters and other guns, for example came off militarily, without a hitch. Somehow, at about noon and again in mid-afternoon, as we came to take up stands at a new cover, there was a station wagon with fully equipped bar.

And the lunch, hot soup, a homemade ham-and-egg pie with flaky crust, and more drink, was fit for a king. I have never seen more punctilious regard for safety on the part of hunters. Guns were habitually carried broken open, unloaded at each fence or ditch and instantly on the appearance of the first beater to emerge at the near margin of the woods. Shots are not taken close to the horizontal to avoid peppering a beater. And only double-barreled pieces are used, of course.

I suspect a pump gun has never been heard of here and if any guest showed up with an automatic he would be shipped back to London on the next train. His worship the mayor leases half the estate of Lord Runciman (older brother to the famous Byzantine historian), supports a full-time game keeper, hires eight or 10 additional beaters for each hunt (gamekeepers on other properties or farm laborers) and thus provides his friends with unparalleled hospitality. But the private shoot of this kind, or that of Lord Lambton, is a vanishing phenomenon in Britain. It's just too expensive. Most owners of large estates can no Installation longer afford to keep the shooting rights for themselves.

Instead, the normal procedure is to lease the rights to a "syndicate," into which one "buys a gun." There are usually eight members, or occasionally four in cases where a participant "buys a gun" for himself and a guest. For shooting rights somewhere near London, for about 10 to 14 occasions during the season, and with a season's total syndicate take of 1,500 to 2,000 pheasants, the cost of a "gun" will run fretn $1,000 to $1,500 a year (it's more expensive for grouse shooting). It pays for owner Taking into account the difference in salary and income levels between Britain and the United States, the real bite on the pocketbook of a Briton must be estimated as double or triple those dollar Available flfor The king's men Installation Available- CHARGE IT! Worn shocks can cause uneven tire wear, side sway on curves, bouncing ride, and dipping stops. Replace shocks every 20,000 miles. BUY NOW AND SAVE Many Keres9 masterpieces played while in his teens By ALFRED FRIENDLY Los Angeles Times-Washington Post Service BERWICK-UPON-TWEED, England "Picking up 1,300 birds in one day is a lot of work," the beater was saying or so he was translated to me, his Northumbrian accent being totally beyond my comprehension.

He was referring to a pheasant shoot a few days before on the estate of Lord Lambton, just south of the Scottish border. Eight gunners, including the noble lord, one of Britain's crack shots, and his guest, Aristotle Onassis, accounted for that phenomenal bag. So fast and furious do the birds come out of the cover ahead of the beaters in such a shoot that each man is accompanied by a loader, there being too little time to reload oneself. In this particular drive, I gathered, each hunter had three guns, since the normal two would grow too hot to handle. My own venture into shooting a few days later and nearby was a more modest affair.

Eight guns took about 70 pheasants, which I found sport enough and all the shooting one could ask. Birds come out like a bomb Cover shooting, the standard British practice, is a rather different thing than the usual American method of walking the birds up behind a dog. Here, the gunners take stands 30 yards or so from the edge of a 20-to-30-acre copse and about 20 yards apart, while a like number of beaters with dogs (retrievers rather than pointers or setters) thrash in from the far side. In a matter of minutes the pheasants start to fly out, usually at a good height and moving down wind. On the day I tried it, a howling gale was blowing down from the Pennines across Northumberland.

The birds came out like a bomb. There were no easy going-away shots for which you had time to prepare while the dog obligingly held the quarry down until you were set. Rather, they came out head on a No. 8 shot at skeet or more usually turned at right angles, forcing a passing shot. I was comforted, on my many misses, by the fact that others in the party were fallible too.

Time and again there was a sequence of 16 shots, one after the other you could have scored it as a series of staccato notes on a sheet of music and the pheasant still in the air at the end, disappearing into the distance. My initiation was as the guest of the mayor of Berwick-Upon-Tweed, an ex-New Zealander named JIM. Smail. Ebul WHEEL ALIGNMENT Adjust caster camber Set toe-in toe-out Inspect steering Most Compacts and Standard Road test car By MERRILL DOWDEN Courier-Journal Chess Writer Although the world championship has eluded him, the Estonian grandmaster, Paul Keres, has for years been in the very top echelon of contenders. He remains today one of the greatest players of this century.

I have been browsing through a selec- American Cars Any additional parts or service but not Air Condilioned Cars $2 Mora figures. And you don't get the birds you shoot unless you want to pay for them at the standard rate at which the game is sold to the market. Total receipts the fees of the members plus the income from the sale of the birds goes to pay for the lease, the salary of the game keeper, the cost of eggs or chicks, the daily wage of the beaters, fencing around the copses where the brooding takes place to keep the foxes out, etc. What the estate owner leases to the syndicate is, in fact, some six to 10 tracts of several acres apiece islands of forest in the sea of cultivated farmland or pasturesdeliberately kept as woodland to serve as cover for the pheasants. Leasing them as such, rather than clearing them for more farming, is a paying proposition for the owner.

Remarkably, for a country from which rich men have supposedly disappeared, opportunities for "buying a gun" in a syndicate are hard to come by. But if you manage it and afford it it's magnificent sport. Friday's pro basketball AT SAN DIEGO (W)-Hayes 28, Murphy 27, Lantz 17, Adams 14, Block 13, Tomianovich 10, Trapp 7, Kimball 1, Egan 0, B. Williams 0. SAN FRANCISCO (120J-R.

Williams 26, Thurmond 26, Lucas 23, Portman 18, MulHns 16, Ellis 6, Jones 4, Attles 1, Lee 0. SAN FRANCISCO WARRIORS 32 23 41 22120 SAN DIEGO ROCKETS 31 32 22 32117 Attendance 7,213. AT TEXAS (132) J. Beasley 25, Hightower 24, Freeman 20, Moore 18, Jones 15, Hamilton 15, Bedell 8, C. Beasley 5, Hagan 2.

DENVER (126)-Cannon 27, Hammond 26, Wright 18, Sidle 16, Kaye 10, Beck 10, Chapman 8, Workman 6, Hester 4, Simpson 1. DENVER ROCKETS 35 26 30 35126 TEXAS CHAPARRALS 28 45 31 28132 Attendance 3,175. listed above will carry a supplemental, charge. hrA A. A FISIC tion of Keres' games selected and annotated by the late Fred Reinfeld.

What impresses me is that so many of these gems were played while Keres was still in his teens. Indeed, this observation was made by Reinfeld himself. "It may safely be asserted," Reinfeld wrote, "that the games of no other master not even Morphy or Alekhine rank with those produced by Keres at the comparable ages of 16 to 20. Only the games of Alekhine played during the same age span are worthy of comparison." It should be pointed out, however, that Reinfeld's statement was written before the arrival on the chess horizon of America's celebrated Bobby Fischer, who won the national championship at the age of 14 and has remained all but invincible ever since. This detracts not from the magnificent games produced by Keres during his early years.

The three motifs which weave incessantly through his games during this period are: Attack, gambit and sacrifice. Brilliancies abound, making the games of exceptional interest. vm vm. mm. PREMIER BATTERY POWER 'a w.

vw. wm 7. 'liXS 'A A 0 UJ G24S Pur on AM-. Cor JcftrfT 12 volt exchange 36 MONTH GUARANTEE OET STARTED WITH FISK Keres was only 19 when he produced this 19-move beauty, played during the Sixth Olympiad at Warsaw in 1935. Before playing, study the diagram.

William Winter (Black) has just moved 12 B-Q3. Keres' reply is devastating. Can salutes its Solunar tables The schedule of solunar periods, as printed below, has been taken from Mrs. Richard Alden Knight's Solunar Tables. Plan your days so that you will be fishing in good territory or hunting in good cover during these times, if you wish to find the best sport that each day has to offer.

Use Eastern Standard Time A.M. P.M. Date Day Minor Malor Minor Malor JAN. 10 Sunday 3:55 10:20 4:10 10:45 11 Monday .4:30 11:15 5:00 11:30 12 Tuesday 5:25 11:55 5:45 13 Wednesday 6:10 12:25 6 35 12:50 14 Thursday 7:05 1:15 7:25 1:35 15 Friday .7:50 2:00 8:10 2:50 16 Saturday 8:35 2:45 8:55 3:05 17 Sunday .9:20 3:25 9:35 4:15 you find it? SICILIAN DEFENSE Kerei Winter Keres Winter 1 P-K4 P-QB4 11 R-Nl PxP 2 N-KB3 N-KB3 12 NxP B-Q3 3 P-K5 N-Q4 13 NxPII KxN 4 N-B3 P-K3 14 Q-R5ch P-N3 5 NxN PxN 15 BxPch PxB 6 P-Q4 P-Q3 16 QxR B-KB4 7 B-N51 Q-R4ch 17 QR-K1 B-K5 8 P-B3 BPxP 18 RxB! PxR 9 B-Q3 PxBP 19 Q-B6ch Resigns 10 0-0 BPxP leading salesmen of the month EASY TO INSTALL Chester Kettle PROFESSIONAL SALESMAN Ray Mayfield PROFESSIONAL SALESMAN FISK AIR FILTER TRANSMISSION SPECIALS All Transmissions Fully Rebuilt and Guaranteed 1958-61 Ford Chevrolets $1 1950 1962-64 Fords Chevrolets $1 3950 1961-64 Pontiacs Olds, Buiclcs. $1 5950 1 965-67 Pontiac, Olds, Buicks 1 7950 BANKAMERICARD MASTER CHARGE BANKARD SHOPPERS NATIONWIDE AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSIONS 106 E.

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