WI Grouse Camp 2023

[Mountain Man]

At first I thought you were a bit crazy to be leaving NW CO for this trip, but it does look really fun so I’m coming around on the notion. Glad to see you having some success up there!

 

[TheGreek]

I had a good day Wednesday,
10-18-23, and managed to kill three grouse. We flushed a lot of grouse. Sometimes you can see the flushes a little better and luck goes a long way when it comes to grouse shooting. I also managed a single woodcock kill.

Flush count for Wednesday for my hunting partner and I:

Grouse flushed 28
Shot at 13
Killed 3

Woodcock flushed 6
Shot at 4
Killed 3

A beautiful mature gray phase:


We ran into some wolf scat and sign that afternoon headed into a cover but had no issues:

 

[TheGreek]

Thursday, 10-19-23, was a tougher day in the woods with less flushes and I couldn’t kill a grouse to save my life but my hunting partner shot well and killed three.

Final flush count for the day for my partner and I:

Grouse flushed 17
Shot at 7
Killed 3

Woodcock flushed 2
Shot at 2
Killed 1

 

[TheGreek]

Friday, 10-20-23, the official last day in grouse camp as the rest of the guys start driving home first thing Saturday morning, found my partner and I running into other hunters and finding coverts that didn’t look like what was expected based on maps. My partner and I didn’t flush a huge number of grouse but I shot well/lucky and managed three more grouse in the bag.

Flush numbers for the day for my partner and I:
Grouse flushed 19
Shot at 9
Killed 4

Woodcock flushed 1
Shot at 1
Killed 0

I finally managed a red phase bird on the trip:

A gray phase from Friday:


And one of the other guys in camp who had a slow week killed three grouse and three woodcock over his young lab so he had a banner day to end the week.

 

[TheGreek]

The end of grouse camp is always a little sad. I only see most of these guys for this single week a year. We look forward to it all year and then it comes and goes in a flash. I reckon that’s how all good hunting trips go. We had too much fun. We drank too much. God knows we ate too much. Despite that, we managed to hunt hard and bag a few birds. But more importantly, we got to chase the king of all upland birds, the ruffed grouse, in his home territory for a week straight. It’s a game for us. It’s life and death for him. I suppose that’s the reason he wins most encounters.

Grouse Camp HQ:


Birds to be cleaned:



Clipping tail fans to mount:

A wet hare:

 

[TheGreek]

Final total flush count numbers for 2023 (8 guys total):
Grouse flushed:288
Shot at: 85
Killed: 26

Woodcock flushed: 87
Shot at: 54
Killed: 23

We flushed a lot more grouse this year than years past but only managed to kill a few more. I’ll post the numbers for the last three years over the next few days as time allows. Woodcock seemed harder to come by this year but per the numbers it was similar to the last few years.

 

[TheGreek]

So this year I laid a an OnX track for every cover hunted so I could track time hunted and miles covered. Over 8 days, it was 43 hours of boots on the ground hunting and 66.3 miles covered.

 

[Ben Lamb]

What a grand adventure. Nice work!!

 

[seeth07]

I miss my childhood days where my dad took me grouse hunting as "the dog". We had a few really good pockets where it was easy to just wall and always flush a half dozen just walking along. I need to head back to those places with a shotgun in my hand and perhaps my dad as well.

 

[nidahunter]

Do sunsets on vacation count?