The King

[C.O.B.]

Steve the question is...will he hold for a point?

[Walt Kowalski]

Amazing video! Thanks for posting this!

[6pt-Sika]

Grouse caused me to start shooting skeet which in turn caused me to start shooting trap ! Grouse caused me to start messing with setters . Grouse even caused me to start fly fishing for trout ( I thought I could hear them drum when I was fishing but of course I concentrated on the trout and the noise from the streams kept me from hearing the birds). Grouse were also the cause of me becoming a die hard 16 gauge person (back when I still bird hunted I used two SxS's , two O/U's a Model 12 and an A-5 . All six of those guns were 16 gauge

[Steve Kleist]

Marc,
Thanks for the post and the link.
We live in the northwoods of northern Minnesota. There is a traditional grouse drumming log near our house. When the Life Flight helicopter makes a run to the local hospital across the lake, the resident cock grouse goes nuts trying to out-drum the helicopter. He puts on quite a show.
We are still in the grips of winter here and no drumming yet this year....however the promise of spring is in the air. We heard the beeps of the first Saw Whet Owl of the season last night.
Best Fishes,
Steve Kleist Ely, MN

[Carl Beers]

I'll make a long interesting story short; my wife and I were adopted by a wild grouse, these days referred to as Mr. Ruff. This all happened in Sept. of 2013. I was putting in a new line fence on the south forty; the heat whipped me and I sat down in the 4 wheeler to rest. Temp was 91 degrees. Heard a noise off to my left, looked over and about thirty feet away was a beautiful ruffed grouse. Actually there were two, maybe three of them. I pointed them out to my helper; we sat there about 15 minutes and one worked his way over to us and just sat there. The others disappeared. He was making a noise and I chirped back at him, he cocked his head and moved even closer. Now he was perhaps 3 feet from me. Just unreal and it gets even more unreal. Decided I'd done enough work for the day, cranked up the four wheeler and headed to the bunkhouse. The grouse started running right along beside us all the way to the edge of the timber. Then he stopped knowing he was not secure out in the hay field.

Told my wife about him at supper that evening and she couldn't believe it. Took her to the woods the next day and within 10 minutes he showed up. He was with us all fall, through deer season and into the winter of 2013 which was one of our worst; terrible cold and record snow. We figured we'd never see Mr. Ruff again. We looked for him several times during the winter thinking we saw him once up in the pine grove but figured he was lost with the severe weather and all. Guess what? Late March of 2014 we went to the timber and within a few minutes he showed up. I failed to mention earlier that he became so comfortable with us he'd sit on our arm, shoulder, on the four wheeler and actually sat in a deer stand during hunting for over three hours.

Going into winter of '14 we lost him again; presumably to the pine grove which is high, dense and secure in many ways. Well, 2014 was another tough winter here; not a great deal of snow but record sub zero cold and wind; we knew for sure we'd probably never see him again.

Last week my wife and I went to the timber in the old four wheeler. Took the chain saw to remove downed trees from fences, etc. and after about thirty minutes in the woods guess who showed up?....Yes, Mr. Ruff. That was March 15, 2015. He made it through another tough winter and looked to be in really good condition. Within a few minutes he was sitting on my wife's arm and renewing and reviewing old times. We've been back to the woods a couple times since then and he flies right to the four wheeler. We have well over a hundred pictures of him with us, with friends who doubted our story and even on the arm of Dr. Zimmer the wildlife biologist from the Ruffed Grouse Society. I could go on and on but don't want to bore you. Am in the process of writing a story about our Mr. Ruff for the Ruff Grouse Society magazine. Will tell in there about many of his adventures and how he survived an attack from a hawk. (he almost didn't-we thought for sure he was going to die) We also have many videos of him. We've never fed him as we didn't want him to become dependent upon us. We also know this won't last forever as Grouse have a life expectancy of 3-5 years with an average life of two years. What a blessing he has been to us, our family and many friends. Sorry I don't know how to load pictures which would really enable you to enjoy and get to know Mr. Ruff as we have.

[Steve Kleist]

Great story Carl. That kind of an encounter might make pulling the trigger this fall a little tough on us softies.
Thanks,
Steve

[Dean Romig]

Here are some of Carl's pictures. Carl and his wife Sue are the ones without feathers






.

[charlie cleveland]

got to be a mircle...i enjoyed this very much....charlie

[Carl Beers]

Dean....thanks for posting the pictures of Mr. Ruff. As Steve mentioned, shooting a grouse might be tough on some of us sissy's now. Well, we don't shoot grouse at our hunt camp now; not so much because of Mr. Ruff but more because our grouse population has dimenished so over recent years. We go further north in Wisconsin the hunt them and enjoy it a great deal. For sure though, Mr. Ruff has become something special at our place.

[Autumn Daze]

Carl, What a wonderful story. 14 years or so ago we had the last female grouse I have ever seen in Connecticut take up residence at our gun club of all places. She would wait for the guy's to open up in the morning on the road up to the club house and it got to the point I could hand feed her bits of donut out of my hand. This lasted a good few months. I have a picture of her just about standing on the tops of my boots hanging on my living room wall.