Dry woods, stiff winds make for skittish grouse

Driving through a patch of public forest, we spotted a grouse on the side of the road picking grit. It immediately fluttered across the ditch and ran into the woods. The woods on both sides of the road didn’t look like anything you would want to put a dog down in, but the birds tell you where they want to be on any particular day.

I backed the truck up about 40 yards and we got ready to hunt. The road ran east to west depending upon what direction you drove. The three miles-per-hour northwest wind didn’t provide a lot of scenting power, but it was worth a try. We headed in about 40 yards to the south and spread out walking east toward the grouse. When we were about where the grouse cut in, Allie came in to check in and turned towards the road. We pinwheeled around and headed towards that direction. Her beeper collar went off and we walked toward the point.

I cut around wide, Josh came up her right side and Clyde a bit left of her. The bird flushed against a patch of dogwood and due to the thickness of the cover, flew up providing us all with a good shot. The grouse came tumbling back to the ground and I managed to get to it before Allie. Just then the Astro chimed point for the pup. It said 60 yards further in and we headed towards her but the bird flushed wild or she bumped it. We decided to head further east since this cover ended against a swamp and we found patches of dogwood and tag alder in the older forest with thick brush. Approaching the swamp, Allie pointed another bird, pinning it along the swamp. We walked up quickly and the bird flushed up to clear the tags and it too came back to ground. Allie got to that bird first and made sure it was dead. We hunted 30 minutes and harvested two grouse.

We moved to another cover and hunted hard, but didn’t get a single bird to hold. Kenzie managed to root out a bird or two that didn’t hold for her youthful exuberance of trying to kiss its tail feathers. Allie pointed a bird 150 yards from us along a tag alder swamp that flushed about 35 yards away. She relocated it when it ran out from her point. She locked down on it a second time but the noise from my approach caused it to flush before I got close enough to see it.

We never contacted a woodcock, despite trudging through about two miles of cover and the temps rose to about 55. By the time I was back to the truck the dogs drank both three liters of water I carried for them. We were covered with sweat and the dogs were hot. This was the fifth county that we hunted for grouse so far this year.

The day before we had started out early, well before sunrise, and we headed to far northwestern covers with high hopes of woodcock and grouse. Four miles of walking and we only produced two points on grouse. One out of a tree and the last one with a temp already at 60, the bird took off running. Clyde saw it bolt out ahead and it flushed 40 yards away. We barely heard the bird go.

We didn’t see a single woodcock that day either.

We talked to several guys hunting them off of side by sides the first day and they told us they just were not seeing birds that day. They blamed the stiff wind.

Leaves falling and wind make for skittish grouse that normally are pretty skittish in the best of conditions.

What I can tell you is that from those two days is that the woods are dry. The only water for the dogs came from what I carried or streams. I can also tell you that we have contacted few grouse by sandy soil. We plan to stick to water and heavy soil for the rest of the season.

A few weeks ago I was in a tag alder swamp sinking up to my knees in mud. Three weeks later the places we hunted needed rain. We didn’t see a lot of catkins anywhere and the dogwood berries are gone.

We headed for home with shade, cold drinks, and comfortable chairs on the deck to enjoy lunch. October rarely disappoints.

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