NH Grouse Hunting Update: 10/9
Great day yesterday in the uplands - in fact, probably my best ever since those days when I was in high school cruising the woods in search of grouse with my brothers. It started right from the beginning too - we started moving woodcock immediately, with Monty making several good points. Most of our birds at first were woodcock, but eventually we began making consistent contact with some grouse too.
While Monty had some beautiful points on grouse, he also went back to school a few times too, and I wonder if the sheer amount of birds we ran in to in the morning made Monty momentarily come unhinged. In three hours of hunting in the morning, we contacted approximately 15 grouse and 12 woodcock. Most days, that’s usually what we hope to put up, but this was a great start. Meanwhile the weather was typical northern N.H. - rain one moment, sunny the next, and then sleet.
After lunch, my client and I headed to another spot. Tom has had lots of grouse hunting experience in Michigan, but by the end of the day he would tell me that this is the most birds he’s ever seen in a day of grouse hunting. We brought out Rudy for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and while he made a couple of productive points on grouse, we just didn’t encounter the same numbers of birds. My thought was that birds would be coming out to the roads as the sun came out for the first time in several days up here - I turned out to be partially wrong.
We then brought Monty out for another go up a logging road, ending in a perfectly aged logging cut, and that turned out to be quite amazing. In one and a half hours, we encountered 11 grouse and a woodcock, and Tom made a nice shot on a grouse fleeing from a brood of five birds. As it turned out, that would be the end of the action and the end of our day, but not before we moved forty birds for the day (and it may have been a few more than that). We hope to have more days like that this season!
While Monty had some beautiful points on grouse, he also went back to school a few times too, and I wonder if the sheer amount of birds we ran in to in the morning made Monty momentarily come unhinged. In three hours of hunting in the morning, we contacted approximately 15 grouse and 12 woodcock. Most days, that’s usually what we hope to put up, but this was a great start. Meanwhile the weather was typical northern N.H. - rain one moment, sunny the next, and then sleet.
After lunch, my client and I headed to another spot. Tom has had lots of grouse hunting experience in Michigan, but by the end of the day he would tell me that this is the most birds he’s ever seen in a day of grouse hunting. We brought out Rudy for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and while he made a couple of productive points on grouse, we just didn’t encounter the same numbers of birds. My thought was that birds would be coming out to the roads as the sun came out for the first time in several days up here - I turned out to be partially wrong.
We then brought Monty out for another go up a logging road, ending in a perfectly aged logging cut, and that turned out to be quite amazing. In one and a half hours, we encountered 11 grouse and a woodcock, and Tom made a nice shot on a grouse fleeing from a brood of five birds. As it turned out, that would be the end of the action and the end of our day, but not before we moved forty birds for the day (and it may have been a few more than that). We hope to have more days like that this season!
