Grouse Hunting

RM Anderson

RM Anderson

Well-known member
Minnesota grouse hunting opener is scheduled for September 19 this year so the past couple of days I have been reading a well used copy of Frank Woolner's book entitled Grouse and Grouse Hunting. What a fantastic book! While I don't typically get out until the leaves turn and weather cools, I may combine scouting for new duck holes with a walk in some early season coverts. I for one have never understood why the season starts so early as they are near impossible to hunt in summer foliage and are mostly taken by road hunters, a practice which I find most despicable. Any other anxious grouse hunters on this forum?
RM
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I'll be in ME for the opener the last Saturday of the month, and at least twice in October. Gunner is a pointing lab, and the duck season opens in ME the Monday following the bird opener so we get double the fun. Blazing away through the leaves isn't ideal, but I'll take action when I can get it. If I don't get any birds, I'm just happy if Gunner points a few. Rarely do I shoot Timberdoodles, unless I have a guest and they want to. Or Gunner gives me stinkeye, which he is known to do. The bad part of the September opener is that the Tuckerton show is the same weekend, I've never made it there.

I'm torn regarding what guns to shoot birds (grouse/woodcock) with. For whatever reason, as I've gotten older I've switched to over/unders more than SXS. I think it's because I like new toys and the SXS's I covet are now $25,000+. Yikes! A Browning Citori Gran Lightning has nice wood, fits me and costs barely 10% of a new A.H. Fox. Everybody knows grouse were made by the Almighty to be hunted with a 16, but I also enjoy 20's and 28's. More 28's than 20's, as the 20 is far too ordinary to be used often in pursuit of such a special bird as a Ruffed Grouse. I confess to bringing home a good many with a 12, but those shouldn't count in any gentleman's lifetime total.

I share the road "hunter" sentiment. A very reasonable "Fair Chase" regulation would be that the hunter has to be out of the car for two minutes, or 100 yards from it, to shoot. They treat grouse like chicken at the grocery store, and the road is Aisle 1. After thousands of nimrods drive the wood roads the first day, many complain at the local gun store when they "drove 150 miles and only got 4". Or "the birds are spooky and won't stand still for me to get out of the truck". These are real complaints heard many times over 60 years up there. :rolleyes: I'll just suck it up and carry on.
 
SJ Fairbank said:
I'm torn regarding what guns to shoot birds (grouse/woodcock) with. For whatever reason, as I've gotten older I've switched to over/unders more than SXS. I think it's because I like new toys and the SXS's I covet are now $25,000+. Yikes! A Browning Citori Gran Lightning has nice wood, fits me and costs barely 10% of a new A.H. Fox. Everybody knows grouse were made by the Almighty to be hunted with a 16, but I also enjoy 20's and 28's. More 28's than 20's, as the 20 is far too ordinary to be used often in pursuit of such a special bird as a Ruffed Grouse. I confess to bringing home a good many with a 12, but those shouldn't count in any gentleman's lifetime total.
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SJ,
I have a love/hate relationship with S/S. I believe that they are the most beautiful gun made but I can't hit well with them so ultimately they get sold. My go to shotgun is a well worn HK Benelli M1Super 90 with 21" barrel. Just don't set it down in the woods...
RM
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RM Anderson said:
SJ,
I have a love/hate relationship with S/S. I believe that they are the most beautiful gun made but I can't hit well with them so ultimately they get sold. My go to shotgun is a well worn HK Benelli M1Super 90 with 21" barrel. Just don't set it down in the woods...
RM
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If that's what you shoot well, that's what you should use. No sense carrying a gun you don't have confidence in. That gun would definitely be a chore to find.
 
Being an old woodcock biologist I would love to be in the grouse/timberdoodle woods in Minnesota or Maine in October, but around here grouse hunting consists of shooting sooty grouse out of a douglas fir tree.
 
And speaking of dogless grouse hunting.....my first year of college in Northern Maine was one of discovery. New grouse covers, trout and salmon streams and of course, the best keg parties. It was at one such kegger that I got an invite to hunt birds ("partridge" in Maine) with a couple of dorm mates.

I had hunted this general area with family since I was single digit in age, but the prospect of new covers and hunting buddies sucked me right in. No dogs of course. Three of us arrive and pull guns out of the trunk. My dad's trusty 16 ga. Fox Sterlingworth (now buried with him) is uncased, while I glance at the other guns. One a .410 single shot the other a .22. They look at me with a WTF is that, while I'm wondering how these guys plan to shoot grouse in the air with a .22. Turns out they didn't plan to "waste" ammo on flying birds. This turned out to be a good partnership, as they snuck around in the overgrown apple orchard stalking birds, most of which flushed in front of yours truly guarding the perimeter. In the 70's it was common to flush groups of a half dozen, we almost always got our limit. That was some fun times.
 
Brad Bortner said:
Being an old woodcock biologist I would love to be in the grouse/timberdoodle woods in Minnesota or Maine in October, but around here grouse hunting consists of shooting sooty grouse out of a douglas fir tree.
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Aren't you in WA? I have a young-ish buddy who's a fishery biologist in ID. I'm quite sure he told me there are some great Ruffed Grouse areas in ID.
 
Rick Hall said:
Hersey, a dogless grouse and woodcock writer isn't to be taken seriously.
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I disagree. Over many years of Ruffed Grouse hunting I have seen more useless Grouse Bird Dogs than good ones. Retrievers YES! They are damn near mandatory. Early or later season I love it all. Ruffed Grouse are DDDDEEEEEEELICIOUS!

my 2 cents
 
SJ Fairbank said:
I'll be in ME for the opener the last Saturday of the month, and at least twice in October. Gunner is a pointing lab, and the duck season opens in ME the Monday following the bird opener so we get double the fun. Blazing away through the leaves isn't ideal, but I'll take action when I can get it. If I don't get any birds, I'm just happy if Gunner points a few. Rarely do I shoot Timberdoodles, unless I have a guest and they want to. Or Gunner gives me stinkeye, which he is known to do. The bad part of the September opener is that the Tuckerton show is the same weekend, I've never made it there.

I'm torn regarding what guns to shoot birds (grouse/woodcock) with. For whatever reason, as I've gotten older I've switched to over/unders more than SXS. I think it's because I like new toys and the SXS's I covet are now $25,000+. Yikes! A Browning Citori Gran Lightning has nice wood, fits me and costs barely 10% of a new A.H. Fox. Everybody knows grouse were made by the Almighty to be hunted with a 16, but I also enjoy 20's and 28's. More 28's than 20's, as the 20 is far too ordinary to be used often in pursuit of such a special bird as a Ruffed Grouse. I confess to bringing home a good many with a 12, but those shouldn't count in any gentleman's lifetime total.

I share the road "hunter" sentiment. A very reasonable "Fair Chase" regulation would be that the hunter has to be out of the car for two minutes, or 100 yards from it, to shoot. They treat grouse like chicken at the grocery store, and the road is Aisle 1. After thousands of nimrods drive the wood roads the first day, many complain at the local gun store when they "drove 150 miles and only got 4". Or "the birds are spooky and won't stand still for me to get out of the truck". These are real complaints heard many times over 60 years up there. :rolleyes: I'll just suck it up and carry on.
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OTOH, walking the roads past the bridges and culverts that are out and keep the heater hunters at bay can be very productive, especially for those of us allergic to dogs who must otherwise rely on the kindness of friends with good dogs. After a sneezing and asthmatic boyhood with Springers, give me a flushing dog over a pointer every day--especially for partridge in the big woods. I like flushers even for woodcock, but at least they hold well enough to make a pointy dog a lot of fun. I'm trading a couple of afternoons of rail hunting for a stump being ground--excellent trade, IMHO--so I better get out and get a little practice on the pole! The good (big) rail tides here this year either right now (too early, I think) and again at the end of the month.
 
SJ Fairbank said:
Aren't you in WA? I have a young-ish buddy who's a fishery biologist in ID. I'm quite sure he told me there are some great Ruffed Grouse areas in ID.
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There is some ruffed grouse hunting in the state too, but it's east of the cascades. There are a few around here but with evergreen forest it can be tough hunting.
 
Wish I were going to be able to make it up for some grouse hunting this year....I'll just have to settle for pictures this year.
 
Jeff,

The best Ruffed Grouse & Woodcock hunting dog I hunted with was my hunting partners English Springer. He was no nonsense, and damn near mean at times but... Man could that SON OF A *ITCH Hunt! There was no giving up in that dog and if ya missed the shot he was Not Happy. What he did to pheasant fields already hunted by guys with pointing dogs was nothing short of fantastic. Guys just shook their heads.

I was raised with pointing dogs and I love em. "Skin, Bones and a Nose". My mother learned how to walk as a child by holding on to the back of a Irish Setter, 1923, when the breed hunted. Out west a combo of a English Setter and a Chessie was pure Hell on Sharptails, Huns and Sage Grouse. Man did we ever have FUN.
 
I will have to relive my youthful days in northeast PA hunting grouse and woodcock vicariously through your stories and photos.
Here in Tampa, I'm probably 1,000 miles from the nearest huntable grouse cover!
BTW, the first grouse I ever shot was with a Mossberg 20 gage bolt action with a polychoke!
 
Vince Pagliaroli said:
Jeff,

The best Ruffed Grouse & Woodcock hunting dog I hunted with was my hunting partners English Springer. He was no nonsense, and damn near mean at times but... Man could that SON OF A *ITCH Hunt! There was no giving up in that dog and if ya missed the shot he was Not Happy. What he did to pheasant fields already hunted by guys with pointing dogs was nothing short of fantastic. Guys just shook their heads.

I was raised with pointing dogs and I love em. "Skin, Bones and a Nose". My mother learned how to walk as a child by holding on to the back of an Irish Setter, 1923, when the breed hunted. Out west a combo of an English Setter and a Chessie was pure Hell on Sharptails, Huns and Sage Grouse. Man did we ever have FUN.
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Flushers are a terror on running birds
 
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