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Mar 13th Late Season Grouse Hunt

I’ll never be sure, but I think grouse hunting is my favourite hunting. I like it because there really are no bad days. You take your gun, which absolutely does not have to be a fancy one, or your bow, and go for a walk. You tend to walk through some of the most beautiful country and often in great weather. It tends to fill me with great optimism because, in my mind, even if I come home empty handed I still got to see this landscape. It’s low speed, short range, and no stress hunting. I have never heard of anyone being sad because they missed a Boone and Crockett grouse. Also, grouse tend to rely heavily on their camouflage so if you miss a shot at them, they tend to stay very still in hopes that you do not see them, so its pretty forgiving. This confidence in their invisibility often means that you can make all the noise you want when you are hunting since they don’t vacate the area when they hear you coming.

This last fall season for me was a busy one, and not in the field. I found I was working and going to school at the same time so I got some weekends that I decided to dedicate to deer hunting more than grouse, I also tried goose hunting one day. Goose hunting seems like it would be fun, if you could find them. At any rate, once deer season ended, Christmas arrived along with its insanity. After Christmas I ended up with nearly a week of time between new years and going back to school. I decided to go to my moms for a few days and try my hand at hunting grouse, something I had previously only done in September and October.  I was told this time of year they tend to spend more time in the trees as snow slows their movement too much on the ground, however the unseasonable warmth of this winter has keep the snow to only a few inches deep.

I decided to take with me my old savage 29B, one of the first guns to come into my possession. In this case it came in pieces and needed a touch of restoration. Its an old pump action .22 that shoots quite well but I find its prone to jamming if you don’t rack the action hard or as I say “with authority” I also found after a few years of casual testing, subsonic ammunition works best, I guess sometimes slower is better. With regular ammunition I can hold about 14 rounds in the tubular magazine that runs under the barrel. If I use shorts, I can fit about 20 and the gun becomes a novelty circus act, at 75 yards with shorts I have time to lower the rifle from my shoulder before hearing the impact on the gong, personally I find it comical.

The best place, in my mind, to go grouse hunting, is by an old trappers cabin on a quarter section of land my step-dad’s brother leases, just west of my parent’s farm. Not sure why, but this area has always been my favourite area for hunting, I think I just like the trees and rolling hills, its used for pasturing cattle so there hasn’t been much for land clearing, and it seems like there is always a new little creek, clearing, or game trail to discover.

I parked my little car at the entrance gate, loaded my rifle and set out walking. I walked the familiar trail to the old trappers cabin, passing areas where I had often seen grouse before. I also stumbled into an abundance of deer and coyote tracks.  From the, now dilapidated, cabin I walked north along a trail that looped east and led to a small south flowing creek in a big valley, I walked along the creek and was spat back out right near the cabin where I had started. Along this trail I found only a single grouse, but it was far too deep in the bush for me to ever get a bullet to it, also the thought of retrieving it from the dense brushes pulled me off that idea.  From the cabin I did another loop along another trail, this time along a trail east of the cabin in a counter clockwise direction. The trail took me up a steep hill to a narrow spruce-lined trail. I had walked there many times before, to me it looks like a perfect place for a bear to be lumbering around, though I had never seen one in there. On this trip though, I did see a grouse, up in a tree. I pulled up my old gun and trained my sights on it, I pressed off the safety and squeezed the trigger. The little subsonic bullet let out a gentle “Psht” noise like an air compressor hose disconnecting. The grouse fell out of the tree and out of sight. I walked quickly toward it and found it and another grouse on the ground. I took a follow up shot at its head, in hopes of not damaging the meat, I missed… then missed again. At this time the second grouse flew into a nearby tree. I settled for a body shot on the first grouse and it fell down. I then took aim at the second grouse and again tried twice for a head shot, on the third I decided I best just take a body shot. The grouse fell and flailed as it hit the ground. I shot it a second time in an attempt to alleviate any possible suffering. I then gave each grouse an additional shot in the head as an additional insurance against suffering. At the end of a rather exciting minute, I did the math and realized it took me ten shots to down two grouse.  In the back of my mind I could hear my dad laughing at me, him being a rather accomplished “1 shot one grouse” hunter. No doubt I need more practice with my old rifle, especially in field conditions. Maybe I should just do more grouse hunting.

 

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