Tucked away in Temple are acres of wooded fields, hiding a variety of game birds, and stream-fed ponds where rainbow trout swim. Here, the members of the Timberdoodle Club bring their dogs and hunting birds to flush game birds, and put on their waders and tie flies to fish in its waters.
“This is the happy hunting grounds,” said Larry DeLamaster of Concord, Massachusetts.
Named for the colloquial term for the American Woodcock, the club has been in operation for more than 50 years, inherited by the current owner and director Randy Martin from his parents. The club is by invitation only, and its 60 or so members use its woods to hunt upland game, and fly fish in its woods. However, on Saturday, the club opened its grounds for a rare open house celebration to mark the opening of a new portion of the club, the Upland Kennels – one of the few aspects of the club which will be available to the public.
“I wouldn’t go hunting if I couldn’t take a dog,” said Wes Reed of Rise and Shine Retrievers, who often helps train dogs or serves as a guide for hunters at Timberdoodle. “They make the experience. You’re a team.”
Jeff Hayer has been a member of the club for 34 years, and regularly hunts pheasant, partridge and chukar, along with his hunting dogs. Hayer has been on hunting expiditions from everywhere to Africa to the arctic, but said the Timberdoodle Club remains a homebase for him, both for hunting and for fly-fishing.
“It’s a gem that a lot of people don’t know about,” Hayer said.
Humans and canines aren’t the only partners who take to the hunting grounds. During Saturday’s gathering, Nancy and Jim Cowan of the New Hampshire School of Falconry were on site, giving demonstrations with hunting birds. The couple gives falconry classes at Timberdoodle, and also uses the club to hunt with their own falcons.
“This is the kind of thing, that if you love it, you can’t not do it,” Cowan said. “Hunting with a falcon makes you completely in tune with nature, more than anything else in the world.”
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.