Grouse Opener in Vermont
 

Nine flushes - all from trees because it was still wet in the underbrush and grown up orchards.

Jamie was able to take 1 shot but didn’t connect. I got no shots and Grace only made 3 points... probably mice or something like that.

We heard one grouse drumming way uphill from us just before we were going back to camp for lunch, but we were pretty exhausted and decided not chase him uphill.





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I’d say that 9 flushes is pretty promising. Thank you for the update Dean.

Any day outside with a gun and a dog is better than one in the house Dean ....you know this !

Pictures! Would love to see some photos.

Nine flushes is a bit on the skimpy side for where we hunt but we’ll see what happens today. Very windy right now but we’ll get out there soon.

A few short years back we could always expect upwards of 20 flushes in the same amount of time, but it’s early in the season and conditions are not right just yet. Best year for wild apples I’ve seen in decades though and the bears are into them pretty good.

As you can see, the fall colors are only about halfway to peak and no leaves have started to fall yet.

I’m sorry about the orientation of the pictures - I’m doing this from my cell phone.

Wind has about abated so we’re heading out to hunt the “Scrubapple Hillside” one of my favorite spots.

It was one of my Dad’s favorite places too and that’s where I cast his ashes to the wind at sunrise of opening morning of deer season 2003.

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Second morning was a disappointment with only 4 grouse flushes... again, out of trees.

Grace slammed into a classic point on the Scrubapple Hillside and I walked around a big scrubapple and in toward her. Up goes a bird and was immediately screened behind foliage. It appeared for 1 second before it tucked up in behind a spruce top. That’s when I fired at where it should have been and I didn’t see it come out the other side so Gracie and I searched for a good while and never even found a feather... aren't grouse the only game birds that can do that...?





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To hear a Grouse flush again
Maybe some day in eastern Ohio
Hoping, Hoping!!
Jim

Gosh, Jim, if it could only be like it was...

Ok, for a Southern boy who's been transplanted to the remnant prairies of North Missouri, what is a Scrubapple? A hawthorne? Crabapple? Abandoned orchard apple tree? Whatever, it sounds like it makes for a nice place to follow a bird dog.

Keep those pictures and reports coming!

A scrubapple, in our jargon, is a wild apple tree that has never been pruned or trimmed. I remember when that hillside was only a pasture with cows grazing and a massive bull in a separate fenced smaller pasture. At the top of the hill next to the remains of a fieldstone foundation are two ancient apple trees. When the hillside is covered in snow and a freezing rain covered it all several decades (at least 5 decades) the trees dropped the remaining withered apples and they skittered downhill and stopped in small depressions. This was the beginning of the scrubapples on that hillside.

Five grouse flushes this afternoon. None pointed. First grouse was a fast left to right crosser but a dead pine jumped in front of my well-directed shot string. The other 4 were only heard but Jamie saw two of them but no shot was offered.

Headed home....




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