Grouse hunting

[Ken The Kanuck]

I enjoy grouse hunting early in the season, opening day is Sept.10, so you can often be hunting in shorts and a tee shirt.

Mainly in my area there are Ruffed, Spruce and Blues. The Blues are normally found over 3000 ' in elevation and are about twice as big as the Ruffed and Spruce. We used a .22 on these and head shoot them.

Nearby there are Chukers, Hungarian Partridges and Sharp Tails. but a dog is pretty much needed for those. We have a couple of dogs, but they are getting long in the tooth like me and are good at finding their food bowl only.

Here is my view from the cabin porch from a hunt earlier this year.

Anyone else here hunt grouse?

KTK

[Allen]

Beautiful view.

[jon_norstog]

Anyone else here hunt grouse?

KTK

Every hunt we go on, grouse are on the menu. A word here: if you cook them right they are absolutely delicious. Otherwise they are gray, tasteless, stringy and VERY chewy. The simple trick is to braise the breast meat in a hot skillet, then turn down the heat to finish cooking them. They are best taken with a .22, but a hunting rifle works OK long as you don't hit the breast meat. Myself, I stick with the .22; my brother will shoot them with his 8x57!

jn

[Ken The Kanuck]

Jon,

We consider them the go to appies for a hunting dinner. Take off the breast, cut it up into chunks, fry in butter with a little garlic and curry powder.

Like you say do not overcook them.

KTK

[Vern Humphrey]

When hunting deer, elk and so on I use a Hammond Game Getter for small game like grouse, squirrel, etc. This is a cartridge case with a steel head and an occ-center primer pocket. The "primer pocket" is really a chamber for a .22 rimfire nail-setting blank. You load a sized buckshot in the case mouth (the sizer comes with the game getter). Mine shoots to the top of the thick part of the lower crosshair at 25 yards.

[barretcreek]

When hunting deer, elk and so on I use a Hammond Game Getter for small game like grouse, squirrel, etc. This is a cartridge case with a steel head and an occ-center primer pocket. The "primer pocket" is really a chamber for a .22 rimfire nail-setting blank. You load a sized buckshot in the case mouth (the sizer comes with the game getter). Mine shoots to the top of the thick part of the lower crosshair at 25 yards.

Yup.
We have Blues and a species of sage grouse here (no more hunting). My first V could spot a bird at sniper range but walked right by one which brushed against me when blasting out of its silo. This dog's default setting is stuck on Puppy so it will be a while before some walking through the forest bird hunting is planned.

And that is a lovely view; hope you have lots of wild visitors.

[Vern Humphrey]

Yup.
We have Blues and a species of sage grouse here (no more hunting). My first V could spot a bird at sniper range but walked right by one which brushed against me when blasting out of its silo. This dog's default setting is stuck on Puppy so it will be a while before some walking through the forest bird hunting is planned.

I'll have to introduce you to my pit bull -- the only dog I've ever known who was too dumb to play Fetch.

[lyman]

I was a member of the Ruffed Grouse Society for a year or so,
friend signed me up , trying to me into it,

not my thing, but then again, I gave up hunting for competition years ago, and have basically given up comps due to time constraints,

funny thing is, all the folks hunt in VA, but rarely see or get a Grouse, and end up going west to do so, (and pheasant, pigeons etc)

not sure why Grouse are not plentiful here, if they ever even were,

unlike Quail , that were everywhere here, and now if you have a covey on your land you shut up and don't tell a soul

[Allen]

Long ago we let farmers farm our small orchard for weed control. Usually, soybeans were planted and the quail were everywhere. Often you would hear the call of the Bobwhite.

When the soybean planting ended the quail left. I can't remember when I've last seen one.