Grouse season starts tomorrow!!!

[wildschwein]

#6585

Big game seasons here have been running for about a week now but Grouse season starts tomorrow! Time for stalks and shots aplenty!
Most folks seem to spend all their time dreamin bout Elk n Whitetails but Fool Hens are what really does it for me. They were the first critter my Dad ever took me hunting for, and a Ruffie was the first animal I ever shot. So many memories made because of these birds. And they don’t call em Fools Hens for nuthin. I even killed one with a dirt clod once.
Yet oddly enough I have yet to kill a single one since pickin up the bow three years ago. I have heard everyone has a jinx critter but I never guessed it could be a Grouse. Maybe this is my year?
Anyone out there have any Grouse stories/pics to share?

[db22]

#53069

It was a pleasure to read your post first thing this morning! Never knew anyone who hunted birds with a bow, but I sure do have good memories of hunting ruffies with a shotgun. “Down South” here in Wisconsin, we won’t be hunting until Saturday the 18th, but I have my license and maps all ready. Broadheads are sharpened; maybe I should make up some blunt tips for squirrels, too, huh? And the old 870 is about ready to jump out of the gun cabinet on its own — grouse opens the same day as bow deer season.

[David Petersen]

#53285

WS — thanks for the reminder, as grouse and fall turkey open here today also and I need to stick a blunt in my quiver when I go out tonight, and a turkey diaphragm in a pocket. We have only blue grouse here in the mountains and after all these years I’m still struggling against the urge to shoot at them sitting in trees after busting a bunch. Once I dead-centered one with a broadhead and even with that he managed to sail off into a canyon, never seen again. Usually I miss even when they’re on the ground, but once got two in a row that way. Very high arrow loss/cost for the meat, but it’s one more element of a great elk hunting. They’re already bugling here! 😀 dp

[Charles Ek]

#53791

Gotta get crackin’ on those flu-flus I planned to have ready for the Oct. 1 opener here — thanks for the reminder!

A grouse taught me a lesson the season before last — it ain’t over until it’s over. I’m coming back to my vehicle without having seen a living creature larger than a woodpecker all day. I switch off “hunting” when I see the car and start thinking “driving” — just before a nice ruffed grouse walks across the forest road at a very leisurely pace, not ten yards in front of me. I like to think that my bag would not have been empty when I went home, if I’d just had the blunt I carried ready . . .

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