Saturday, September 4, 2010

No Grouse For The Grouse Report!

Michael & Dan With Sugar and Gus  

Michael & I took Sport, Sugar & Gus up to Bull River Ranger Station this morning. The weather was nice and we hoped for a good day. We put Gus & Sugar out first and both dogs worked very well. Gus is hitting the brush like a pro this season but no grouse were found. We were going to run Sport down along the river but the Ranger cabin was rented out and the people had dogs running loose. We caught a  grouse in the road and put Sport out for some fun. It was a small stub tailed baby so we left the guns cased.
We moved to my favorite Aspen grove and put all three dogs on the ground. This is a very beautiful area and has put out 35 birds in an hour on good years. The only thing we saw was a skunk! On the way out I caught some motion to the right and a young bird flushed. We headed that direction when another jumped into a tree. It was another baby. The Mama bird flushed way ahead of us and Michael hit both triggers of his L.C.Smith as the bird hit the edge of the woods. We followed up the shot and Sugar got real birdy but we never found the hen.
We went back to the house for lunch and the  temp. climbed to 82 deg.  We spent the afternoon planting pigeons for Gus & Sport then took Karen out for dinner. Thanks for all the cooking and cleaning you do for us Honey!! Bow season starts Sat. the 4th so I'll be doing chores around home tomorrow and leaving the woods to them.
Bringing Gus in on a planted bird


Good job Gus!!

I hope the other grouse hunters are doing better. Anyone out there have a great grouse hunt to tell us about??

3 comments:

  1. Sorry the season has been so unproductive. Grouse populations are certainly cyclical. The season here opens Oct 2nd and I'm planning on getting out to western Md. for a few days with the dog. Not sure what to expect but we'll have a goood time one way or the other. If the grouse and woodcock don't cooperate, I'll take her squirrel hunting, which is always fun.

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  2. Thanks Art! Sure hope it'll be better for you guys. Seems almost anywhere is better than N.W. Montana this year. The past two years have brought very wet springs and that's a killer for baby chicks. We'll be looking forward to hearing how your opening day goes in Maryland.

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  3. Wow, harsh opener. Looks like a nice day to work with the dogs. Great pictures.

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