Hunting spruce grouse up in the AK…..they make delicious table fare when harvested early in the season when they have been gorging themselves on high bush cranberries & blueberries, including all the other forest & basin berries that are available early in the season. When the snow & cold comes…and they start feeding on spruce needles, forget about it. In my experience, the spruce grouse also flush harder and are more cautious when they’re in the berries and bugs. They get extremely tame when the cold comes. Not a very sporting bird when they get like that.
When they get into the spruce needles….You don’t even want to cook them in the house let alone eat them.
Sharptails are still my favorite. CZ is right, they eat like tender steak filet.
On another note….When I was in the AK, didn’t matter if I was in the interior or in the coastal areas…I was usually the only person who hunted birds with a shotgun. 98% of the folks up there shoot them with a .22. Pretty rare to see someone up there shooting upland birds with a shotgun.
