And this was abundantly clear to me the other day while I sat in a tiny chair blind, in the dark, waiting for the sun to come up and for a ruffed grouse to enter the habitat that lay before me.

Ruffed grouse hunting is a paradoxical pursuit. The bird itself is small and delicate; a single pellet is said to be enough to take one down. Yet ruffies are hard to hit in the thick brush they ...