Here in Maine, the saying goes that grouse are what fancy sports wearing expensive clothes carrying expensive shotguns shoot (at and miss) in the air, while pa'tridge are what you ride the logging roads looking for, then stop, jump out and ground-sluice with high-brass 6s that single-shot Topper you stuff behind the seat of your pickup.
Or the ones you cap while clucking and scratching like chickens (through the head, please) with your deer rifle while waiting for the non-existent deer to show up. Or the .22 when you were out looking for squirrels or cans.

fiery, dependable, occasionally transcendent