Yet Another Grouse Thread! YIPPEEEE!!!!!

[ICEMAN]

I cant wait for the opener!

[jackelope]

with all due respect here Dave, I'm pretty sure no one's giving much info in this thread because they figure it will end up in the magazine.

[Curly]

It's why people bought the magazine. They expected that.

Anytime I did a map, that was "my" hunting spot I was giving up. Sort of "sharing the wealth" so to speak. I believe over the past four or five years, I gave up 15-18 good grouse hunting spots, and over the years I wrote on the staff as WA editor, I did a hell of a lot more such maps.

I'm doing two more grouse maps in Northwest Sportsman this year...one in the July and one in the August edition. One east, one west.

That is one reason why I bought F&H News.........just one more source of info.  I enjoyed the maps.

I will also have to think about subscribing to NW Sportsman.

[Dave Workman]

with all due respect here Dave, I'm pretty sure no one's giving much info in this thread because they figure it will end up in the magazine.

Well, phooey on those guys!
 

[Dave Workman]

I cant wait for the opener!

Well, you're gonna have to, just like the rest of us.
In the meantime, why can't we read great grouse hunting stories like they USED to publish in Outdoor Life 40 years ago?
Those were great tales, lots of color, good action. 

[Skyvalhunter]

I do and that is why I have two boxes of old Outdoor Life magazines.

[old boat]

Well; I wasn't to concerned, it  may have been other people hunted there, just thought it was a coincidence. The two of you and a photo spread with a map, especially since hunter "X" was a novice hunter and a new-by to the  state. I felt hunter "X" was the villain, still do. Don't know you, so I can't say.  So back to my question about west side grouse, what do you look for, early season, that may limit my aimless wandering in the forrest? Seriously the west side birds got me confused!

[JackOfAllTrades]

Not do discuss NWHFnews... I didn't think that publication was still in print.

Dave, for Grouse area, I suppose it depends on where you live. I won't drive to Capital Forest for Grouse, though it is a good area. I would rather chose a spot closer to home for a Sunday hunt for Grouse. -Though I know several areas that are Grouse producers, most of my Grouse is taken during Deer season. To be honest, I bet I've seen the least amount of Grouse in the Little Pend Oriell than any other wooded area in the state. I have taken Grouse from Skamania county to Whatcom county and the Okanogon. The best areas to 'hunt' are green belts that have open underbrush. After a rain I just walk/drive the logging roads. Otherwise I've shot plenty of them out in the middle of nowhere. I've killed them from nearly sea level to 6000 feet. The largest Grouse I've ever seen were on the eastern side of Mount Baker foothills. The most abundant area that stands out in memory would be the Little Mashel and Nisqually drainages and for some reason, what used to be the Black Diamond Plateau, but that was many years ago.

I'm sure there are a lot of us on this forum that could talk about Bird and Deer areas that we've hunted that are now covered with housing developments.  Sux!

-Steve

[Da stump]

Hunt High for Blues and as you come down you will probably spot a bunch of ruffled.  I loved hunting huckleberry creek, Sun top, and the head of the white river. All above Enumclaw. some great area.  Watch out for bear.

[Dave Workman]

Well; I wasn't to concerned, it  may have been other people hunted there, just thought it was a coincidence. The two of you and a photo spread with a map, especially since hunter "X" was a novice hunter and a new-by to the  state. I felt hunter "X" was the villain, still do. Don't know you, so I can't say.  So back to my question about west side grouse, what do you look for, early season, that may limit my aimless wandering in the forrest? Seriously the west side birds got me confused!

I hunt alders and vine maple for ruffed grouse, along riparian areass with streams, and look along the grassy road edges early and late for grouse and that's where you will find them when you get off the road and hunt the surrounding country.

Berry patches will attract grouse, and as I note in my upcoming story in NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN about hunting the country from Mosquito Meadows to Burley Mountain, Badger Ridge and Pinto Rock south of Randle, all of those up high areas with berries can be LOADED with blue grouse. I cannot remember a time when I went up there that I haven't seen grouse.  Sometimes LOTSA grouse.

I've also bumped into grouse most of the time up around Walupt Lake.

I don't know what NWHF News is.  Never heard of it.
There was Fishing & Hunting News.
Now there IS "Northwest Sportsman"

[Dave Workman]

As for reading the old great grouse stories, today I pulled out a February 1963 story written by the late Erwin A. Bauer which I believe to have been the best ever grouse hunting story I ever read. It was about his trek in southern Ohio along the Vesuvius trail in a national forest area the previous winter.

It had all the elements, a bit of history, grouse habitat tips, shooting and not shooting, missing and hitting, camping out with grouse for dinner, and he did it all by himself..

I got the opportunity late in his life to speak to Mr. Bauer, who had moved to Sequim with his second wife and became a renowned nature photographer.  He was a very kind, gentle man from the old school, and as gracious a fellow on the telephone as I have ever spoken with. When I told him what I thought of his grouse story, he was very flattered.

His older son dug out a copy of it and sent it to me about a year after his death.  

A very interesting guy who would have been welcome at my campfire anytime.

[ICEMAN]

I agree....watch the berries.... 

We hit the elderberry plants in the middle of the state.... We always open the birds up and see what was for brkfst or lunch....fresh greens, lots of ants and other bugs, pine tips, and berries... Looked good enough to eat!

My favorite way to grouse, is to walk the old closed forest service grades....look for sheds....spy grouse sleeping in the shade under a lone tree...or plink one out of a pine tree after you wake it up from nap time.... I've even shot a few as they dusted themselves on ridge tops in the am... I hardly ever shoot at a flying grouse...

Erwin Bauer sounds like he was a great man.

[Dave Workman]

If you ever read his stuff early in his career, the hunting stuff, he was a hell of a guy, good shot, good sense for conservation yet he understood that harvest is part of the game plan.

I am hopeful that one day we might see a volume of his early hunting stuff.

Nothing wrong with plinking grouse in the head with a .22  The shotgun purists go bananas when they hear me talk about that or read it in one of my stories but at dinner time, I'm not the one picking shot out of my teeth.
 

[rasbo]

thats all I use on them a 22 mag to the head..I hunt this one road thats about 3miles long grass grown over the road.it seems to never fail me..knock on wood..theres a couple of spots I will stop and call bobs.

[Skyvalhunter]

Have to hunt the high mountain blues in the tamarack away from the roads. A 22 wont cut it there as the big chickens don't hang around for you to plink them.