I've spent a liftime hunting birds. Where I Iive, grouse are numerous, fun to hunt, and are a treat at the table. Sage hens and sharptails are numerous also, but I had no good pictures. A lot of our grouse hunting is incidental to wood-cutting in the fall.


Ruffed grouse is the king. I've eaten them every month (often roadkills) and they're always real good.



Hunting blue grouse tired out my pup.



Spruce grouse are good eating early. Once they switch over to spruce buds, they don't taste as good.



We're usually very picky on our blue grouse. We try to shoot only young-of-the-year birds. The adults, I think. are tough and taste bad.



Besides fun shoots and good eating, spruce grouse are sometimes plentiful and carcasses make good marten bait.



The red above the eye denotes a male in the spruce grouse.



Lisa and I liked rock ptarmigan very much in Alaska, and hunted them often.

Nice Jack,
I grew up shooting ruffies in central NYS (even before legal age for a license). Other than quail the best tasting wild game bird IMO.

Nice pictures Gulo
Great sport shooting ruff grouse , we don’t have the numbers here like we used to years ago .
Great table fare ..

I shoot spruce grouse when I’m moose hunting up in Canada , usually with a slingshot , to keep the noise down
Good eating also

I’ve shot parmigian, while in northern Quebec caribou hunting in the winter.
Fried breast with eggs in the morning was my favorite

Great pictures as always! I enjoy watching the grouse here in the apple trees. They should be arriving in about 10 minutes. On most days there are 8-10 of them and they sure are entertaining to watch.

Nice pics!

I love grouse hunting! It doesn't get any better than shooting grouse over nice, solid points!

Us poor folks have to eat what we find in the yard here! Nice photos Gulo.

Nice shots, Jack.

I have ruffies that congregate on my place often. Blues are here too. I have planted and encouraged shrubs and trees that they glean fruit and buds from , and that has paid off.

What type of grouse are in Eastern Washington (east of Spokane) and Western Idaho? I heard what I’m guessing is their Spring ritual the last couple of times I’ve been out there, but was too preoccupied with filling turkey tags vs finding them. This year my main goal is to get pics and hopefully a video of that ritual. I know they start way before the sun is up and even before the birds were gobbling. When you unintentionally set up fairly close to one and it starts, it’s almost eerie sounding until you realize what it is. I did jump a few and that in itself is a wake up call as well.

I have a bird hunting friend that live to hunt grouse and woodcock He is a Registered Maine Guide and lives their in the summer and Oct and Nov I have known him for about 30 years and during those years he never had less than 4 English Setters at the same time And at times he has had 7 for a number of yeas in a row And that does not include the 3 to 6 his son has These are not just mutts that sometimes hunt But rather well trained finding and retrieving machines that rarely miss a beat when hunting birds And yes that means they are pheasant hunting dogs also And one of his favorite expressions is "He likes most dogs more than he likes most people " I have 2 bird hunting dogs myself and I can relate to his way of thinking Anyone that does not enjoy hunting birds with dogs is missing something special in life I mostly have been a deer hunter for the past 30 years with the disappearance of the ringneck in PA And I enjoy the various types of hunting that are possible D eer ,ducks rabbits turkey and others But I grew up hunting wild pheasants and given my chance I still geta special feeling flushing a bird in front of a dog as he cackles and beats his wings trying to gain altitude to escape and dog Grouse woodcock pheasant ducks are all a part of fall land the special sights of the trees the smell of new fallen leaves and the chill in the air that says take in Natures bounty when it is still available

Thanks for sharing Jack. Love grouse of all species both chasing them over pointing dogs and eating them. Pretty much only have sharptails around me now but within a couple hours of ruffs, blues, spruce and sage grouse.

Nothing like a good feed of grouse.
Old Cuddy who lived in the castle frank area in the late 1800's used to say
"I can tell the month O' the year by the taste O' the partridge".