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

Only hunted grouse two and a half days with Brotherman Wingshooter. We did respectably and shot twelve.

Saturday morning I was sitting watching a multi deer trail intersection by some ancient apple trees which had dropped nearly all of their fruit. The moon was setting in the west but the sun had not risen yet... it was just about legal shooting light for the deer I was waiting for. In ten minutes seven grouse flew in from various angles to alight in and under those apple trees - one even landed in the branches above my head in the spruce I was sitting under. If I had my Parker instead of my Ruger .270 I probably would have only seen deer... ain't that the way?

Tough times in Downeast Maine, our spring weather patterns have changed, the past two years have been extremely wet early on, its put a hurtin on the grouse. I run a dog for woodcock and we have always put up a dozen or so grouse in search of our query, this year none!

I annually spent a week in my old stomping grounds and moved a ton of 'em this year. It's nice to see that the area still holds a lot of partridge, sad to see that the timber company that owns the land seems to know where my favorite coverts are when they decide to re-log though... I lost three covers this year,(😠) which is disappointing to say the least after driving 15 hours to get there.

I was in central ME (SW of Moosehead Lake) in mid-October and the grouse numbers were low, due to some bizarre weather the preceding week or so. We had shots at two (one did end up in my vest), which was much fewer than the number of WC we moved. Some friends were in the same general area a week or two later and reported better grouse numbers.

Pretty gun!

OWD

People are not taught to hunt ruffed grouse using the same techniques modern fishermen use. But in a lake, different times of year, the fish are in different places, different times of day they are in different places. Different times of day their behavior is different. Weather plays a role.
Use your brain to eliminate the parts of the lake that are dead water.

Think of the forest as square lakes. Use topography like a lake bottom map. Eliminate dead water.

It's weird, because we expect to fish as I described, yet we refuse to teach hunting that way.

Thanks - it is not exactly a 16 gauge Boss OU, but it makes do.

Ha. It looks more like a 20g Woodward ...

OWD