NEAR BRULE, Wis. _ The high-pitched tone blaring from Casper's beeper-collar told hunting guide Damian Wilmot all he needed to know.
"Casper's on point," Wilmot hollered through the stand of doghair aspen.
John Rodelli, 72, began working toward the sound, carrying his 16-gauge double-barrel. Rodelli was Wilmot's client on this mid-October morning, prime time in the grouse and woodcock woods near Brule. Rodelli had driven up from Inverness, a Chicago suburb, to spend three days with Wilmot, of Superior, fly-fishing for steelhead on the nearby Brule River and busting brush for grouse and woodcock. He has hunted and fished with Wilmot in previous years.
Before Rodelli could get close to Casper, Wilmot's 3-year-old German shorthair pointer, the woodcock whiffled up through the popples.
"Woodcock your way!" Wilmot yelled.
Rodelli, a veteran upland hunter, picked up the flight of the woodcock just over the treetops. He mounted and swung his shotgun in one motion and squeezed off a single shot. The woodcock tumbled from the blue October sky.
