First hunt with the 20 bore Sterly
 

I had a Red Letter Day recently when I snagged (two) nice Sterlingworth small bores at the Allentown/Forks gun show. One was a 20 bore two-barrel set 26 & 30 inchers from a friend who gave me first dibs on her. Yesterday was her first grouse hunt with the 26-inch #2 barrels. I always have some high brass 4's with me when turkey season is open. Yesterday it was a mixed bag, both on opportunity and the grey fox is the next step for a A Fox Gets the Game diorama for my room. She's a vixen and weighed 14-1/4 pounds on a baby scale. Only flushed a pair of grouse all day and both rocketed into the hemlocks. Oh well, another Red Letter day!

Cell pic, not the best.

Hmmm... Looks like a Fox gets the fox before the fox gets the game. :clap:





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I'm beginning to think this is one of those guns that are just plain lucky. I was out for grouse again today and killed two birds. One mature and the other a bird of the year. And just after taking the first one I heard another bird drumming up a storm just down the trail but it must have spooked when I went after it. Never saw that one. Light rain on and off, very quiet walking. Again I had the #2 barrels on the Sterly, choked IC and Mod. The PA daily limit is two birds.

For any grouse hunters in the NE quadrant of PA, the crop of the one bird I dressed out was full of sweet fern, nothing else. And since the woods are full of ferns at least hereabouts, the birds must be scattered widely. I haven't found any other real food sources and even the staple wintergreen berries are scarce. Just for count, so far this season I've seen 5 birds in about 8 hours of boots on the ground.

Another cell pic.