Love the spring time chasing those birds.

JP - Grasshoppers make up the bulk of the crops this time of year on the chukars and hungarian partridge. Our blue grouse, too, always with a few hoppers as Sundance pointed out. Also, the yellow racers (snakes) are generally full of them also. By the way, man, beautiful photos; well done!

Boco - Yes. My wife shoots a 28. She's got a o/u. Absolutely loves it. You can't go wrong with it. Do yourself a favour and get a stacked gun, not one of them wussy side-by-eaches.

Nessy - Okay. Streams are acceptable, as well as cricks.

Mad Mike - I used to love the spring hooter hunting on Admiralty Island. Really miss it. I can hear the hooters booming from my yard every spring, but we don't have a spring season on them.

Jack

I've owned a 28 gauge side-by-side. Sweet little gun but it was too light and whippy, couldn't hit anything with it.

I was doing a pretty good job of restraining and behaving myself. Thanks for freeing me.

Boco…get a Baretta O/U. I could do anything with my Silver Pigeon. Please, no side by sides….ugh….

Grew up hunting Sage Hens and Pine Hens (which I also still call Blue Grouse .

I'll give you partial credit for not mentioning Ruger.

Ouch you’re rough on my little red label.
At least it has birds in the picture with it.

Lol, nothing personal.

Plural. I've got one set aside for ya.

I love the gray bar on the tail of Lazarus’ and Dan Barnhurst’s blue grouse. I don’t get that here, our’s are all black.

How does Sage grouse taste,I shot one for mounting when I lived in Montana,there a very cool looking bird mine is mounted in the full strut love the tail feathers spears.Big birds 4 to 5 lbs I'm guessing,Huns and ruffed grouse were the best eating,never shot Chuckars how are they for table fare,they must be fun to hunt as well in the land scape they call home.

We don't have Ruffed Paahtridge we have Ruffed Grouse.

The other white meat. Picked up 3 the other day with the .22. I often wonder how come their hearts are half the size of a spruce hens heart? Any biologist on here?

Might have something to do with the pale meat on a ruffed and the dark meat on a spruce.
Young spruce grouse here-young of year,taken in the fall have light meat like a ruffed.By winter the meat is purple.

Young spruce grouse here also have white tender meat in the fall. Rarely shoot them in the winter. Ruffies seem to have much fluffier feathers, ( better for insulation ) than spruce hens, which may rely more heavily on blood flow to keep warm. Just a theory.

Some of the grouse from last year
can't wait till the 15th

Good post Jurassic with the crop contents. Can call the crop "Uikuass" an Innu name and the name of our granddaughter besides her English name. Her great grandmother named her before she passed. With spruce grouse, before the snow, often red berries (mountain cranberries) and blueberries in them crops. For a small snack open the crop and float the contents. They will separate and the red and blue berries float and snack time or you can put them in dressing to sweeten up the birds if roasted. Always pick the birds here for most flavour. Usually rough pick right when shot. Very quick and saves time and mess at home or camp.

I used to hunt birds with my dogs, German shorthairs.my last dog was so smart it all most train itself. we shoot 100 birds off him when he was 9 months old, man I loved that dog, never got another close to him, don't have a dog now probably will never have another dog. Just walk the back roads now when I want a bird, our season opens on the 15 of sept.

Great post i dont care what you call em partridge or grouse grew up shootin them with sling shot along with my brothers,dad let us take the 410 when i was 8 and would give us two or three shells and tell us he wanted that many birds hatted to come home after a miss or two and we had the dog to a cross cocker that would tree em for us and chase rabbits and sqirrels great times. like Bocco says 410 shells hard to find and more money than 20 gauge. thanks for pics and stories,take care.