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[bitmasher]

Any grouse hunters out there? If so what type of grouse and where have you hunted them?

I used to hunt blue grouse (a.k.a prarie chickens) in Northwest Colorado. I enjoyed it but they seemed like kind of a stupid bird (compared to pheasant).

Pheasant never seemed to flush unless you had a dog working the undercover (usually sage brush, not corn or wheat fields like in the bread basket states). However these blue grouse, would flush with just people walking around. Worse the grouse would sometimes just mill around (oblivious to their surroundings) while you were walking around in shotgun range.

Blue grouse are pretty big birds though (for a game bird) and it was just an awesome sound to come right up to a thicket of sage brush and have 2-4 birds burst into flight right in front of you!

[ChesterGolf]

We hunt ruffed grouse up here and depending on their location some are cleaver and some as dumb as tree stumps. I find the ones is the soft woods are a lot dumber than the ones in apple orchards and hardwoods. :???:

[ This Message was edited by: ChesterGolf on 2002-10-06 12:15 ]

[bitmasher]

Well maybe the ones in the orchards are just so plumb from living the good life on dropped fruit that they get lazy and stupid. :wink:

I found this link on the blue grouses range. Guess there are lots of varities:

http://wildlife.state.co.us/sp...../index.asp

Come to think of it we may have been hunting sage grouse, although it probably is hard to tell since they inhabit similar range/habitat.

[eajohnston1969]

i hunt in the northwestern part of oregon. great ruffed and blue grouse country...when you can find them. the cover is very dense and finding game birds is about as simple as winning the lottery. i keep my shotgun close while driving in and out of my favorite deer hunting spots though...i do occasionally see them by the road, or in the case of my first blue grouse kill, sitting on a stump at the edge of the woods.

[bitmasher]

Do you have much sage brush their Eajohnston? If not what is the "dense cover"?

In that article I linked to above, they said that blue grouse like to hang out at the boundary between sage brush covered open areas and forests. So that makes sense what you are saying about your first blue grouse.

Sometimes we would use dogs to help push the birds. However it seemed like with just 2-5 people walking in a side by side line (up to 50 yards apart) was a good techique too for getting them to flush. The dogs we used always seemed to get to far out and flush the birds too soon. Bad trainers I guess. :smile:

[maineguide]

We hunt ruffed grouse here in Maine they are smart, but we also have spruce grouce (which you can't hunt)and they are stupid. Walk up to them and kick them in the a$$.

[bitmasher]

Quote:
Walk up to them and kick them in the a$$.


:smile:

Yup, sometimes the grouse are that stupid...

[eajohnston1969]

there is sage in the state, but it is on the drier, high desert, eastern side. here you can find grouse in two different types of habitats

first, a little background into what is "dense". western oregon (or the wet side as it is called) is rolling mountains that vary from 2000 to 3000 feet in elevation. steep canyons with dense trees and undergrowth and large clear cut areas with berries and regrowth mixed in.

Ruffed can be found in the creek bottoms with lots of blow down timber. that is, if you can walk into the creek bottoms with lots of blow down timber. the birds here usually avoid areas that us as humans would like to walk through.

Blue's, it seems, like the higher elevations and sit at the edges of the clear cuts. i would think that finding them would be easier, but the clear cuts aren't really that "clear" and usually are about knee deep with berry bushes, stumps, and left behind branches etc. from logging.

a dog would help out alot, but since i currently lack K9 companionship that is a moot point.

[eajohnston1969]

let me try something.... i think HTML coding is on and i might be able to get a few pictures up here.... this is a picture of my Blue. as you can see, i am not a professional wildlife photographer, i should have had the barrel of the gun over the vest instead of under it.



[ This Message was edited by: eajohnston1969 on 2002-10-14 22:06 ]

[eajohnston1969]

in addition to Grouse..the more common bird to find along the roads between deer spots is the Mountain Quail. This is a good size one i popped on the same day. it almost made me want to stop deer hunting and switch over exclusively to birds... i hope the inclusion of a quail picture doesn't get me in trouble for being "off-topic".



[ This Message was edited by: eajohnston1969 on 2002-10-14 22:12 ]

[eajohnston1969]

i guess this is a good representation of "dense cover" actually, this is pretty light in comparison to where you would see grouse.

this is me heading out for blacktails with a Winchester Model 94 30-30.

[bitmasher]

Thanks for correcting me on that "dense" cover stuff, should have known that there wasn't much sage brush in western OR, but for some reason I wasn't thinking when I posted.
Duh...

Definitely looks like you have no lack of water. I think those are ferns on the ground in that last picture! What time of year is that? Just recently?

Looking at the blue grouse picture you put up, I'm thinking now that it must have been sage grouse that I was hunting and referred to earlier. Sage grouse are a bit bigger and lighter in color.

That is a big quail!! Never heard of mtn quail.

Yes that is dense too, K9 help would definitely be a benefit.

[eajohnston1969]

those are ferns allright. they're everywhere. that picture was taken just this season. probably about 2 weeks ago i guess. as green as that is, that is the DRY season. they had the "high fire danger" signs all over the place and you could only travel the roads if you were carrying a shovel and a fire extiguisher (yeah, like i am going to jump out of my truck and go fight a forrest fire with a shovel and a little fire extiguisher...ha ha)

The Mountain Quail (or the grouse either for that matter) don't get a lot of attention around here simply becuase it is so tough to hunt them. there are some advantages to that though if you are willing to put a little time into it. the birds don't spook easily so you can approach them (when you can find them) and as you can see...they grow to a nice healthy fat size.

[bitmasher]

Wow, sure looks wet for the dry season!

Your "dense" make the "dense cover" I was referring too above, look wide open... :wink:

I do know that Oregon did have some nasty fires this year, just like a few other western states. I think with the shovel and the extiguisher they are hoping you will put out (or attempt) little spot fires, perhaps by a road. Wishful thinking perhaps...

Sounds like you have some great grouse/quail hunting and if it doesn't attract a lot of interest all the better! For me the most exciting part was flushing them up close.

[eajohnston1969]

i was walking out to my deer area yesterday morning and a grouse almost flew right into my head. scared the heck out of me. it was barely light enough to see anything..mostly shades of light and dark..i heard branches crash behind me and when i turned around there was the "shape" about 2 feet from my head and closing fast...i ducked and frantically waved my hands over my head. it landed on the road right in front of me and i could tell from the silouette that it was a grouse...damn bird. i was jumpy the rest of the day.

too bad my shotgun was back in the truck...ah well, it wasn't shooting time yet anyway.