Fowler for grouse?

[paulvallandigham]

Most hunters hunt the fire trails, and logging roads in this kind of cover. No one can produce a shotgun that is both legal and short enough to allow you to swing it in this thick stuff. Give this place ten years to grow up, and shade out 3/4's of the current trees, and it will be a wonderful place to hunt.

If you want to make a habitate that is good for the grouse, and also easy to hunt, spend time each spring and summer thinning out this kind of scrub. Don't remove it all. Pick the tallest and best shaped tree to grow, and then cut down the small trees around it. Let sunlight in to hit the ground, and low brush with berries, and seeds will grown in place of these small trees, providing both cover, and food for the birds. Your dog moves through those trails because he is so low to the ground he is both seeing under and walking under the thick brush you see. Get down on your stomach some time, and take a look. I think you will see that I am correct, and that there is a whole NEW world down there for you to explore.

 

[Darkgael]

Thanks, Paul. No thinning in this stuff - State Game lands, 49,000 acres, much like this. There are areas of fields but I've yet to see a grouse out in the open. There are birds in what is pictured now; we, Belle and I, turn up a grouse just about every time. It's getting the shot that is the problem. (I have to smile at the memory - I found, again, a huckleberry bush that still has a nice round 12ga. pattern sized hole in it from when I shot through it last year at a grouse that had flushed from the other side. Missed.) The pic is taken from a fire road that winds through this cover but the grouse usually do not accommodate me by flying down the road (if only!). The shots in this stuff come when/if the birds tower after take off.
I really would like to take the fowler out more because it handles so nicely but this type of cover is mostly what we have.
Pete

 

[paulvallandigham]

WADR to our state and federal laws, what they don't know won't hurt you. I thinned an area like that in the Shawnee National Forest in S. Illinois when I bumped into a standing tree about 3 inches in diameter, and it broke off at the ground, and fell. When daylight came the next morning, I found the entire patch of trees was dead, shaded out by bigger trees blocking the sun, and they were wood pecker food.( Also, BTW, good firewood). We used some of the trees to burn in our fire for 4 days, , and when we left I had cleared an area the size of a large living room. I went back a year later, and our camping grounds, which we cleaned up and out when we left, had grown a nice cover of grass, while the area I had cleared was growing new bushes, and brush, and looked almost park-like.

When you thin an area like I am recommending, you are reducing the forest clutter and removing fire materials, lessening the chance of a severe forest fire destroying the whole forest. By open up area to sunlight, you allow trees to begin to grow at different ages, which is healthy for the forest and for the wildlife that uses it. Old growth forest, where all the trees are the same age, and die at the same relative age are the biggest forest fire hazard we have. The Fire at Yellowstone more than 20 years ago awoke the U.S. Fire service, and Forest service to the unintended consequences of putting out all forest fires. Now, they let small fires burn, watching the weather to see that they don't get out of control. L.A. would not have its frequent problems with brush fires and santa ana winds if it would annual burn the underbrush in those ravines, and on those hillsides. My gun club here in Illinois has a work party every April, and we burn the underbrush carefully, just as the ground is beginning to green up. There is enough moisture that the fires cannot get very hot, or get away from us, and all we have to do is pick a day without much wind, and we are set to go. Our annual burns have reclaimed slopes and ravines from vines, and stickers, added nutrients to the soils from the ash that is left over, and open areas to sunlight so that new trees can grow. With every opening, there is a circumference of new brush that grows up, providing more food for deer, and other wildlife, and cover from storms, and prey animals. We get the use of the dead trees and blow downs for our firewood, the land owner has someone taking care of his forested or wooded property, paying him rent to do so, and he doesn't have to be worrying about fire hazards.