Grouse Hunting

Down East Wings of Thunder

Up in Maine a lady guide has developed unusual
ruffed grouse hunting techniques. Eschewing tradition,
JoAnn Moody has learned that grouse can be patterned,
like deer---which results in some very productive
hunting methods, such as driving grouse.

I shouldn’t take credit for the grouse, an oversized gray phase male. I should not---but I will.

It was a typical scene in the New England coverts. I was angling right, crossing a path of woods; regulation grouse woods at that, filled with aspens and alders and pineys and gotcha bushes. The game plane was for me to walk the far edge of this woodlot while Friend Wife walked the near edge. JoAnn Moody and her springer Sophie would then drive through the woods, providing us shots at grouse flushing to the sides.

My trailing left foot got caught in some brambles. While trying to free it, my gun barrel, of course, jammed in some fir boughs. Now I’m totally off balance, all but falling to the right.

If you’re used to grouse hunting, you know exactly what I mean. You’ve been there before. If you don’t hunt grouse, you’ll never quite understand.

Ol’ ruff, naturally, chooses that moment to flush, about 30 yards hard to the left and slightly behind. By the time I tear my foot free, loosen the tree’s hold on the gun, turn, mount, and fire, the King was disappearing into an alder thicket 50-odd yards away. Swinging on the winged shadow, I pulled the trigger. Somehow, magically, the ounce of number sixes, the grouse, and a hole in the alders all came together at the same time. I don’t know who was more surprised when the bird went down---me or the grouse.

Like I say, I’ll claim it as my own. But the real credit for bagging that bird belongs to JoAnn Moody. JoAnn ran a grouse hunting guide service out of Belfast, Maine, at the time. And she’d stressed, over and over again, to never decline a shot at a bird. “It’s no crime to miss,” she’d said more than once in the past couple of days, “but if you can see feathers and don’t take the shot, well…..” Delivered in her finest down east accent, punishment for such an unspeakable crime was always left to your imagination. Rather than face that imagined punishment, or, certainly, JoAnn’s scorn, I took that hail Mary shot. And the bird fell down. So it really belongs in her gamebag, due to here grouse hunting tip.

Actually, had I missed I would not have been too disappointed. We’d gotten into more than our share of birds that grouse hunting trip. At a time the upper Midwest and much of New England was riding a grouse down cycle, we were averaging 2.9 flushes per hour.

Part of this came from the grouse hunting technique. Using springers exclusively, unarmed guides combine the driving of birds to posted hunters with traditional over-the-dog hunting. JoAnn and her people, through constant exposure to the coverts, have more than a fair idea which way flushed birds are likely to fly.

Hunters are posted at logical crossing points, and the guide and his dog work through the cover, moving birds towards the hunters. Multiple flushes are not uncommon, using this method---which, basically, formalizes a system that most grouse gunners use from time to time anyway.

At other times, especially if there are no logical escape routes, hunters are used as moving blockers, in that instead of posting on a suspected flyway, they flank the driver, moving alongside and slightly in front of the guide and dog.

“It’s especially important,” JoAnn notes, “that when using this grouse hunting method the hunters keep up with the bell, not the dog handler.” JoAnn believes the sound of a dog bell spooks grouse, and they flush in front of it. So, by keeping up with the dog, you’ll likely get more shots. Actually, we found it better to stay somewhat in front of the dog, because grouse flushed well ahead of the bell.

But grouse remain grouse no matter where you find them. So we listened for flushes as well as the bell, and watched for the King always. It paid off; we saw almost as many birds as we heard, which was quite a few. Much as I like pointing dogs, hunters we met using setters had less luck. They’d hear birds flushing wild but saw few. And fewer yet held for the dogs.

This is unfortunate, because nothing in the woods is as stylish as a steady to wing and shot setter when the king of gamebirds flushes from under his nose.

Even more important than the grouse hunting tips JoAnn preaches is the cover she hunts. Old, abandoned farms, overgrown apple orchards, alder thickets, and aspen stands, all interspersed with overgrown fields, provide some of the best grouse habitat available anywhere. Fifty years ago all of New England looked like that. Nowadays, second growth forests have taken over the abandoned farmsteads, and you only find that ideal mixed cover in hidden corners.

Most of these coverts are private property. But here’s also Frye Mountain, a 5,000 acre wildlife management area which is managed for grouse by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. More, even, then teaching me her techniques, I’ll be always grateful to JoAnn for introducing me to Frye Mountain.

Overall, Frye Mountain consists of oak, beech, popple, plantation pine, mixed old farms, second growth fir, birch, and aspen stands. Little by little the department has been converting the birch to aspen, creating four- to five-year classes of popple for grouse food. “Frye Mountain produces lots of fall and winter cover and feed,” wildlife biologist Gene Dumont told me. “Cutting timber in blocks, as we’ve been doing, produces spring brooding cover as well.” In addition, there is an on-going project to release old apple trees wherever they are found.

JoAnn, with access to plenty of private land, thinks even one other hunter in the section is crowding coverts. Not me. I mean we’re talking public land with low hunter density and high bird populations. It would take more than one or two other parties to upset me when grouse hunting.

How dense are the grouse? Using JoAnn’s grouse hunting system of driving birds, it takes about four hours to hunt one section. We’d gotten a late start, however, and only gunned it about three hours that first afternoon. Seven birds (six grouse and a woodcock) flushed for us in that short time.

The grouse hunting method here is to post a hunter near the upper and lower edges of each strip of woods. The guide and dog then drive the strip, with the hunters moving along at about the same pace. Over the years, JoAnn has developed a route that lets her parties hunt out every strip without disturbing the ones next to it.

For instance, there’s one area containing five alternating fields and strips parallel to each other. A forest road moves downhill past all these strips. Following the road, you start hunting at the bottom-most strip. One hunter then follows the road until he’s halfway up the next field. Staying the middle of the field, the hunter moves to its far end. The second hunter and guide then move to the end of the lower field, then to the forest edge, and the drive begins.

This alternating movement lets you thoroughly hunt a forest strip without bothering birds in the next strip up.

Given the narrowness of the forest strips, Frye Mountain can provide more open shots at grouse than anywhere else I know. Flushing in front of the dog, they are as likely to burst out of the edges as they are to fly forward into thicker cover. So, at the sound of a flush, you start to mount, swinging towards the sound of the bird. If it breaks free, you’ll have one of those all too rare open shots at Ol’ Ruff. If not, you may or may not get a shot through the thick stuff. But you might get a repeat flush if you don’t.

Sometimes there are surprises when grouse hunting in this manner. As JoAnn drove one strip, I moved along with her on the upper end, while Friend Wife posted the lower edge. Suddenly what sounded like a logging operation emanated from the woods.

“Bird!” JoAnn screamed to alert us. Bird? It sounded more like falling trees. Sure enough, a couple of turkeys that had been roosting in that strip broke out of the cover.

We weren’t there for turkey, though. The moment I lowered my gun, a grouse followed one of the toms. I stood there, staring in disbelief, with a perfect quartering shot to the right, out in the open, just like being at a trap range. Belatedly, I mounted and fired, way behind Ol’ Ruff. Still shaking my head in disbelief I saw another ruff take flight, and then a third.

As I said before, grouse remain grouse. Just when you think you have them pegged they’ll surprise you---which, when all is said and one, is why we hunt them in the first place.