When I was about to graduate from optometry school in 1983 at Ohio State, my requirements were that where ever I went, there had to be good grouse hunting and walleye fishing. I obtained licenses in Wisconsin and Michigan as well as my home state of Ohio. I actually had great job offers at the Marshfield c linic in Park Falls, Wis. and in Escanaba in the UP. I ended up 10 miles from home, close to family and my ailing mother.
Grouse hunting in eastern Ohio was as good as it gets back then. 30 flushes per day were not uncommon, and there was lots of territory to hunt. Shooting 50 birds/year was not difficult if you had good dogs--and I did. Started going to the UP in 1986, and the hunting was not any better than home, justa whole lot easier--no hills and no thorns on everything that grows--what they call thorns in the UP just tickles.
Round 2000, the grouse population started to nosedive and continues to worsen. In 2009, I self imposed a moratrium on shooting grouse--I still hunted, but wouldnt shoot. 4 flushes a day are about it now.
The entire southern Appalachian grouse pop. is suffering, but the northen Appalachian regions are stll ok. The boundary seems to be I-80 in Pa. Above that, good grouse hunting still exists and below you are just exercising your dogs.
Family is all gone from this area now, as are all the jobs and industry. Steel mills are being cut up for scrap metal. It is bleak here. I would move after I reitire in a couple of years, but my wifes family is here and my son lives in Pittsburg( less than an hour from Wheeling). I will probably start to make severl serious bird hunting trips/ year. As for now , the high point of the year continues to be the 2 weeks spent in the UP each year.
So, if you live in an area with good bird hunting, you are lucky and I hope to hell it continues.
Have guns/dogs will travel.
Harold
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