Dennis Walrod Online

TACTIC 1: Provoke the grouse into flushing. Most of the time, a ruffed grouse will let you approach within fifty feet or closer, but you’ll seldom get within ten feet before they rocket away. These birds typically fly only 150 to 300 feet in the direction of denser cover, which most often is a stand of conifers. [SOURCE: Bump et al, NYS report] Ruffed grouse are territorial creatures; they follow daily routines of roosting, feeding, and resting within the fifty-acres or so confines of their coverts. Usually, they just walk to wherever they want to go, and you‘ll hardly ever see them in the shadows. You need to provoke the grouse into flushing into the air where suddenly you can see them and then take a sporting shot…or two. Or three. You do this by getting close enough to a concealed grouse that the bird senses an immediate threat, for which explosive flight is the best solution. You need to become familiar with those elements of grouse habitat where grouse are inclined to be. Once you’ve flushed a few birds in a familiar covert, what you’ve learned about grouse can be logically applied to any other covert similar in size and habitat.

TACTIC 2: Control the Direction of the Flush. Let’s consider the best way to hunt an area that includes, for example, several acres of dense conifers. Surrounding this “island” of conifers is a thick border of tall second-growth poplars and birches festooned with grape vines. (This is where you want to begin your stalking, because you’ll be in between where the grouse are and where they want to go.) Farther out, the jungle begins to thin; there are thornapple trees (hawthorns), maybe some alders too, but out here you can at least stand upright much of the time. Even farther from the conifers in this imaginary grouse habitat, there’s more open space such as a pasture’s edge, and you’ll see relatively low-growing viburnum and dogwood bushes. It‘s usually a mistake to begin hunting along this open, outer fringe because any grouse you flush would most often fly straightaway from you to the dense conifers. You often won’t even see this bird, but will hear only the drum-roll sound of the flight. The idea here is for you the hunter to always be trying to place yourself between where the grouse probably are and where they probably want to go. So, first plow your way through to the edge of the conifers [A], and then follow this overgrown inner edge for perhaps a hundred yards. Be hunting every inch of the way, always on the lookout for possible hiding areas on the ground that you can approach with your shotgun at port-arms. Then turn around; walk about twenty yards [B] farther away from the conifers, and hunt back along a line parallel to the original to where you started. Do that same thing again, coming back [C]. Seen from overhead (SEE SKETCH), your eventual path out to the outer fringe will be an “S”, with maybe some extra squiggles. You know this method is working when a grouse flushes and instead of just flying straightaway from you, it carves a resolute curve around you in order to get to relative the safety of the conifers. When a grouse flies like that, you have an extra second or two to swing the gun and shoot.

TACTIC 3: Hunt with a Specific Purpose in Mind. Much has been claimed about the merits of zigzagging and stop-and-start walking to flush grouse, but I believe these techniques are effective only when they happen to coincide with the locations where grouse are lurking. For example, you can zigzag all you want to through a covert, but if the directions of those little zigs or zags aren't aimed at specific objectives, fewer grouse will be flushed. Similarly, stop-and-start walking is generally a waste of time. However, a pause associated with eye contact, imagined or real, will trigger a grouse explosion more quickly than any other maneuver. If the hunter purposefully stalks every likely grouse haunt in such a way that birds are tricked into flushing, he will, in actuality, be zigzagging and stopping occasionally. But he’ll be doing it for specific purposes.

TACTIC 4: Block the Escape Route. I believe that a grouse already knows the direction it will go before it flushes. If a grouse is not restrained from following this chosen path, the hunter will usually not be afforded a chance at an open shot. In fact, he might not even see the bird as it goes out the “back door.” Another escape tactic which a grouse will use, if approached incorrectly, is to merely run away from the hunter. The lone hunter seldom if ever observes grouse scuttling down through the underbrush--and consequently assumes that they don't ever do it. But they do. Tracks in the snow are “smoking gun” evidence of this tactic; the normal meandering tracks of a foraging grouse will be seen to stretch out to an eight- or nine-inch stride on a fresh trail, that usually ends with the marks of wingtips blasted into the snow. Hearing the distant flush, a poorly positioned hunter may wrongly conclude only that the bird was "spooky" and flushed too soon. You should approach a likely flush site in such a way that you put pressure on the bird to question the merits of the original flight plan. One way to achieve this is by walking briskly past a likely lair until you’re under what you believe to be the favored flight lane. Then, suddenly turn towards where you think the bird might be concealed and begin a slow approach--always with more concern for maintaining shooting position than for determining the exact location of the grouse. Try to keep moving; this seems to momentarily discourage the grouse from running for a rear exit, and it gets you closer to the quarry. If and when a grouse does flush, it will be at shorter range than if you had approached from the side opposite the bird's preferred direction of escape.

TACTIC 5: Let grouse know where you are. Sometimes, grouse will flush from way beyond effective shotgun range. They seem more inclined to behave this way on windy days and when the autumn leaves are falling. Once you’re in the woods, an effective way to get closer to spooky grouse is to actually let them know you're coming. If a grouse can hear you, it knows where you are, and apparently feels more secure about staying put. Remember, grouse are at home on the ground, just as pheasants and turkeys are. They can’t afford the caloric expenditure of flushing into a dangerous sky every time they hear a twig snap. If a hunter were to confide that he was consistently having a problem with grouse flushing wild, wind or no wind, I'd advise the fellow to pick up the pace a little, to move more boldly through the woods. Don't try to pussyfoot the thunder bird.