doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Second barrel on grouse

I'm always very weary of a Grouse hunter with a single shot shotgun. Next to the .22, its the most popular type of gun for road hunting/ground sluicing slobs.

And I am very appreciative of having a second barrel on the ready. I suspect that the guys pointing out the higher number of hits with the second barrel are right. I never tracked it, bit at least for me a good number of my birds are brought down with the second shot for the reasons already stated.

And its a whole different ball game if I connect with the first shot. OH what to do...? Stand ready for more flushes? Quickly reload the first barrel before another goes up? As Ted would say these are good problems to have, but the answer is more obvious if I already discharged both barrels.

More than a century ago, organized shoots involved bird handlers releasing quail or pheasants from a cage by sliding an end panel up (also called a sluice, named after irrigation sluice gates) to release the birds to a waiting shooter. When the sluice was lifted, the birds ran out. If the shooter shot before they took flight it was considered a shameful act.

Today, some shooters consider the shooting of a game bird on the ground a shameful act. Likely an uneducated throwback to the late 1800's. For today's hunters who walk 5+ miles looking for a grouse and who traverse every type of brush, tag alder, black berry brush, etc...while ready to take aim, it is a very different experience. These hunters may get a shot or may not during the entire hunt. If birds are flushed, they almost never flush into the open where a shot is afforded, rather they flush towards the thickest, nastiness and are usually out of sight before a hunter can lift his/her shotgun.

Don't disparage a real hunter who puts in sweat equity to earn a single chance at bringing home a grouse.

Here out west….we also hunt forest grouse. Blues (dusky) and Ruffs. There are many times that you cannot get the birds to flush out of the trees and even getting them to flush from under cover can be a chore. I’ve literally yelled at them…thrown sticks & rocks at them, all in an attempt to get them to take to wing. I’ve even shook the tree or branches they are sitting on to try and stir em up. Sometimes it works, a lot of the times it doesn’t.
Yep…..to some of you the Ruff is the king of upland birds…to a lot of us out west, the ruff is in the same class as a squirrel. They prefer to sit on a branch, stare at you and make little noises rather than flush sight unseen. In some years you can go up into the mountains and shoot limits of blues and ruffs on one hunt..walking up a single draw…with very little challenge. It sort of takes the fun out of it.

Very similar to hunting Spruce Grouse in Alaska. Not very challenging. People who’ve been there and done that know what I’m talking about.

Road hunting or ground sluicing game birds is much more ethical than pretending to support gun rights, and then voting for known anti-gun Democrats. But a number of Liberals here are able to justify such irrational behavior without ever pressing their political choices to respect the 2nd Amendment Rights of law abiding citizens.

I want to shoot my grouse on the wing in a fair chase hunt. And there have been many times I did exactly that while carrying a single shot 20 gauge Savage model 220. It was not ideal for the job, but that was mostly due to being very tightly choked. But I'd rather see a grouse shot on the ground and subsequently eaten, versus seeing such things as sky-busting, or not making every reasonable attempt to recover shot or wounded game. And I'd never be goofy enough to support a politician who came right out and actually promised to infringe upon our gun rights, as has become common for many Democrats. Ethics and making good choices are often related to intelligence, or the lack thereof.

Hunting Blues with a good flusher is a completely different game, the birds sure do not hang around and they can provide some darn sporting shooting.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on what caliber of person makes a "real" hunter. I have often walked similar 5+ miles and while I had seen several grouse on said walk, I never pulled the trigger, and still felt good about it. And at least for me, if I find that my sweat equity isn't yielding enough back on my investment, perhaps a part time job would alleviate the burden and provide some funds for dinner too. At least more than a Pa'tridge's worth.

Also, why not suggest to said hunter, why not just drive? If they need meat in their freezer that badly, why not take advantage of all the advantages road hunting has to offer?

For the record, I don't need to eat what I hunt. I eat it because it is tasty, and the right thing to do if I killed it for sport. I hunt for the sport of it and respect my prey., If you can tease it out from above, I have little respect for the meat hunter's position. We haven't lived in a hunter gatherer society in quite some time now.

If you must ground swat a grouse or shoot a grouse sitting in a tree you should:

A. Be starving.

B. Shoot them in the head w/a Colt Woodsman or S&W Kit Gun.

Otherwise it is simply not sporting or necessary.

I hunt for my own reasons, but success is measured by actually killing something to eat. "Necessary or sporting" is determined by me and me alone thank you. I take the shots that are offered and have ground-sluiced so-many grouse by this point that it's beyond counting now and yes, they are very tasty.

^ Yup!!!!!^^^

Beg to differ.

I knew a guy who lived in an assisted living facility in Pine County, MN. His place was close to some good grouse hunting spots. He didn’t really need too much assistance, and lived on the side where they just checked on you in the morning. He was in his 90s, had fought in Europe in the second big war, and was on his way to the Far East when he got the word the war had ended. He had fought like hell to keep his pickup and his .410 single shot, at the home. I would see him walking the Munger Trail on warm afternoons, where he would sneak along, and take a Grouse or two that he came upon. The trail is a mile in and a mile out at that spot, and the grouse he took would either be on the ground, or in a tree. He told me he hadn’t shot one on the wing since Nixon was in office.

That guy can shoot them any way he finds them. I still try to take them on the wing.

But, when I grow up, I want to be just like him.

Best,
Ted