doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Grouse - Opening Day

Tom my experience is that walking old logging trails is usually more productive than "brushbusting." The trails are artificial openings where there is more sunlight, more foods like clover, and seem to form territorial boundaries.

Neighboring NY opens on the 21st of september, our season is closed until october 1ish or so...opening day isn't much good for taking birds, but it's a great way to air out the musty gear and put all that summer dog-training to some semblance of use. If lucky I might get to put a few little holes in some still-very-green leaves and hopefully mentally mark a few spots that need a walk-through later in the season. I probably won't take any birds then either, but what the hey (all New Englanders worth their salt know that the only huntable bird populations are in Maine).

I'll take the thick stuff, thankyouverymuch. There may not be any extra birds, but it keeps the riff-raff out--I tend to be a bit anti-social in my fall pursuits.

Ran the pup on Greater Prairie Chickens last Saturday am....averaged a bird contact every 7-8 minutes for two hours........and never came within 200 yards of a bush, much less a tree. You guys are hunting in the wrong place. Sorry.

sv

Sometimes, but you'd be surprised to find that most of my hunting is fairly level ground. The logging spur roads that branch off the forestry road have overgrown to little more than cattle trails these days. However most are level across the hillside and lead into coverts along the way. A mile or so off the road there's little if any other hunters and the birds don't get skitterish until mid October. By then the "orange bloom" of deer hunters invades all the the most remote coverts. That's when I head higher...or farther east after chukar.

I hunt, wherefore I am. Wouldn't do me much good to hunt in Nebraska, since there I am not! Besides, I rather like it here.
(although I'm quite certain I could find a way to stomach 15 bird contacts in two hours without having to don protective clothing including a helmet and goggles....)

We had a fine opener. My friend from Arkansas shot his first Chicken 5 minutes into our hunt. It was a banded bird, the first we had ever seen. The Bayard was properly blooded, the dogs handled well, and all is good in Chicken country. Here are two photos, one of a typical point on Chicken ground, the other is the Bayard.