Grouse?

[KyFlintlock]

Anybody go after the grouse with your Muzzleloaders?

I whipped up this pic this eve in anticipation of this falls outing!

Anybody have any pics of grouse they have taken, and any stories?

Thanks and good luck!
Wess

 

[pab1]

Nice picture! I have always used a bow for grouse. I picked up a .32 Cal Crocket recently that I plan to use for grouse and any small game hunting this fall, when I am not bow hunting.

 

[Halftail]

Nice Picture Wess!
I hunt every fall for Grouse.I just love them Big Grouse Soups we have at the camp in the fall... :v A few years back it was the first day of Grouse season and I was Fierce and left the truck before the break of light to get where I wanted to be at Dayrbeak.I was just stumbling up onto a bit of high ground as the light was coming in the east when all of a sudden I heard this scratching and skuffling around in the leaves to my left.Then like a shot a good sized bear started climbing a big birch and went right to the top.I musta suprized him as much as he suprized me.Don't know if I got any birds that day now but the Bear incident sticks in my mind. :v

 

[bucktales]

No not with BP.
I had a hard enough time hitting them with my modern SxS. :cursing:
I haven't seen one in Ct. since I was a kid, but I have been known to chase them Paatrige around in VT. for 25 yrs.
One story I have was about 15 yrs ago during BP deer season in vermont. I used to hunt the backside of Stratton Mtn. in Green Mtn Nat. Forest. It was a pretty bad day out with heavy ,blowing snow and I figured I'd hunt the softwoods and maybe I'd jump a deer in there. After slow walking for a couple hours, I stopped at a big fir tree to take a break. I heard some clucking above and when I looked up, There were no less than 50 partrige roosting in it.
Me being there didn't seem to bother them. Didn't think there were 50 of them in the whole area, let alone one tree. :haha:

 

[Roy]

Great pic! Love chasin those birds around... Not to much habitat for them hear though, getting harder and harder for the Forest Service to harvest timber, with out a whole bunch of legal :bull: :cursing: ....... just about to start a flinter just for that purpose... well unless someone wants it more than me :haha:

 

[BRUN]

Nice pic. :hatsoff: Never hunted grouse with a ML yet but I got a funny story.My wife and I were elk huntin and I saw this grouse at the base of a tree.Me being the great hunter I am :bull: tell my wife watch this I'm gonna get us supper.So I grab about a 2 foot stick and try to sneak up on this bird.I throw the stick sidearm,throw and a miss.I try again,miss.By this time my wife is not to confident in my huntin skills.So anyway this stupid bird is still hangin around,I think thats why grandpa called them fool hens.I find my stick,throw it at the bird,now this is the bad part of the story. When I started my throw the stick got cuaght on the palm of my wool glove and swung around and hit me in the jewels.I fall to my knees,my wife falls down laughin.She helps me up and says"Come on mountain man.I think you need an ice pack"Next time I'll use a muzzle loader. :rotf:

 

[BrownBear]

No ruffies in my immediate area, but lots in the interior of Alaska. On a moose hunt a few years back bullwinkles were scarce but ruffies were everywhere. I strapped on a handgun in the unlikely event I saw a moose, and carried a 20 gauge cartridge gun for grouse. Came back to camp with seven early enough to have them cooked and waiting when my pards came back. Now that I do most of my hunting with a ML, I'll pull the ball on my 54 and load up my 30 grain bunny charge and go head shooting (it's legal up here to do that) the next time I run into so many with no moose around.

Back in the day when we could use lead shot for ducks, I did most of my bird hunting with a SxS 12 ML, including ptarmigan. Limit was 20 (and still is), so if you'll let me call a ptarmigan a grouse, I did a bunch of BP grouse shooting once upon a time. I'll tell you one thing: When it's miles back to your truck, you'll sit down and dress a limit of birds before you pack it out! Heck, you can hardly get a limit to fit in a large daypack without dressing them.

 

[rabjr]

Nice pic Kyflintlock.

My favorite bird to hunt, or was. Just like Bucktails said, pretty much the same thing here next door, can't remember the last time I saw one in R.I but I did shoot a few in the mid 70's here.

Funny Bucktails, when I was 15 I was running around VT as well. We had a camp and 200 acres in Weathersfield, not far from Springfield. Was no deer here then so everybody went north to hunt. I shot more qrouse in VT back then than down here for sure. Miss those days.

 

[Mike Moore]

Grouse is very good to eat and one of my favorite game dishes. We hunt them every year as off days of rest during muzzleloading season in Colorado. For a dumb bird, they do taste good.
I have a friend who always tells my favorite story when it come to this animal. Bill had bought a cheap cap and ball pistol to carry with him during muzzleloading season, since he was always seeing them along the pea gravel roads while hiking to and from his favorite hunting spot.
He loaded it light and the first morning out, got into a batch (what do you call a flock of grouse?). He pulls out his pistol and shots one. It falls over. Bill things "Great!" and kills two more. As he is reaching over to grab the first one, it gets up, shakes it head and wobbles around. Then the rest does the same. He ends up pistol whipping the three grouse, since the light loads did not pentrate their feathers and only stunned them. I can still imagine the look on his face and him turning the pistol around to use as a club.
mike.
p.s. maybe it is time to get a few out of the freezer and cook some!

 

[PreglerD]

Would anybody be so kind and describe what a grouse is, kind of goose?

Regards

Kirrmeister

 

[rabjr]

There are several different kinds, we have Ruffed grouse here.
[url] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruffed_Grouse[/url]

 

[paulvallandigham]

Kirrmeister: You are more likely to have the Hungarian Partridge in your woods to hunt. They are slightly larger than most grouse get. Partridge will explode off the ground, fly almost straight up, and then about 10 feet off the ground( 3 meters) suddenly turn and fly DOWNWIND. That is their failing. But, many shooters shoot to quick, and shoot over the top of the bird as it turns and flys off on a flay path.

When they get 20 yards out, they often glide down to get close to the tops of the ground cover. That makes for a difficult shot, as the shooter is shooting down, and its hard to get a proper lead on the bird if you don't have experience shooting these kinds of moving targets. They often look like they are moving slower than they really are. Misses are general behind the birds, and not in front of them.

We have both Ruffed Grouse, and Sharp Tail Grouse in many of the northern states in the USA. There are also Spruce and Blue Grouse, but their habitat is much more limited and mostly in Canada.

 

[bucktales]

Exploding aint the word. Sometimes they hold real tight till the last moment. Nothing like a heart attack after stepping over a log with a couple of ruffies sitting on the other side. :shocked2:

 

[hawk]

I like to hunt them while on my moose hunt.
ussually hunt for a week and if we get a moose early it's all grouse hunting after that.
that's one advantage a smooth bore offers"load the ball for the moose and the shot for the birds"

all this talk about huntin'...I'm going to go clean my[url] gun...again[/url]

 

[paulvallandigham]

You will know a grouse or pheasant hunter by the thin smile that comes to their face when you mention the names. Only folks who have been there have a clue at how startling it is--- no matter how many years you have hunted them---- to have a grouse or pheasant, or quail explode out from under your feet! I figure if my heart can survive that bit of surprise, I am doing okay. I once hunted with a group of pheasant hunters who had a rule that we all let the first bird to get up in front of us go, partly because of all the years we hunted and never saw a bird, and partly because it took a bit of experience that opening day each year to not let that exploding bird stop your heart. We figured that the excitement of that bird getting up made it much more likely that we would be punching holes in air, rather than hitting the bird and bringing it down. Anyway, the practice allowed us all to just enjoy being out there, watching a bird break in front of us, and seeing who jumps the most. :thumbsup:

 

[tg]

I try to every year at least a couple of times, with either a smoothie or smoothrifle either specificaly after the Grouse or while deer hunting, mostly Ruffs around hear with a Blue now and then at the higher elevations, also a lot of big fat Mt. Quail at the same time.

 

[boar]

They are not many here like they was. One bird hunter told me the turkeys are eating the eggs. Sounds like it could happen. Dilly

 

[PreglerD]

Now I have it. In GE we call it "Moorhuhn".They belong to the family of "Rauhfußhühner".

Thanks for the explanation!

Kirrmeister

 

[Marc Adamchek]

I lovehunting pah'tridge. Only thing is, there's more huntin' than gettin' here in western Mass these days. I hunt all my upland birds with either my beautiful Westley Richards (1890)sxs or my "newer" W J Jeffery (1924). However, THIS season I'll go back further in time and take my Mike Brooks fowler into the woods and see what I can do. I broke my left wrist in March and had to have surgery on it, so lately I've been doing some physical therapy by picking up that beauty and swinging it around the house, killing all kinds of imaginary birds with perfect shots! I'm scheduled to start my range work on Aug 1. The fowler will mean a light gun and light loads....gotta make sure the wrist can take it before working with the heavier .45 and .50

 

[Oldruffedhunter]

I'm going to try building a double barrel flint lock next spring in maybe a 24ga to hunt them with. Up to date I've used only a o/u and SxS. I've just got bitten by the flintlock bug and and since chasing grouse is my favorite thing to do I'm going to give it a try.