A visit with Lou
 

I visited Lou Rotelli this morning. He lives about 20 minutes away. I saw some restocks he was working on and I am always impressed with his work. He is a true craftsman and a nice guy. We talked at length about three things. I’ll discuss two of them because the third would probably start a firestorm on the board and that is the last thing I want.

His opinion is that the introduction of turkeys in our area is responsible for the decline of the grouse. He pointed to all the great grouse cover still in the area including around his house. I can’t really buy into his theory but I do have to admit that the grouse numbers started diminishing when the turkeys reached a high population. It might be just coincidence, I don’t know. Most attribute low grouse numbers to habitat quality and quantity, which is probably true for many areas of NY and Connecticut. But there is still plenty of great cover in my sections of NY and Connecticut. I don’t mean just pockets of good cover but large areas that should hold grouse. It’s always puzzled me. Wide spread disease could have something to do with it, but I have never heard of disease in my area. NY doesn’t even list it as one of its five reasons for diminishing populations. I am at a loss to explain it.

The other thing he mentioned was his belief that all fluid steel Parker barrels, with the exception of Whitworth on early high grade guns, was of the same steel. A case could be made that economics would have precluded the use of many different types of steel, despite what is stamped on the barrels. This sounds logical to me. I always had a suspicion that this was true. I believe that I remember that studies were done on Parker barrels but I don’t recall the results.

Incidentally, the woodcock are coming back from the south in numbers in my area. Lou has taken some trips with his pointer and reported back on the number of birds he was finding including one in his driveway. I might take my little setter out and see for myself.

Interesting topics. I have read numerous and varied opinions about the decline of quail here in the South. Some say it’s the change in farming methods. Some blame disease. Some say the loss is due to predators such as coyotes. Lots of studies have been conducted and lots of dollars have been expended and I still think no one knows for sure.

As far as Parker steel I will wait on Edgar to respond.

The turkey/grouse thing has been discussed several times here. Consensus is that there is virtually no impact.

https://fwf.tennessee.edu/wp-content...opulations.pdf

Not where I come from. Sorry not drinking the Punch. We had grouse before we were over run with turkeys. Not to say turkeys are the only reason grouse are long gone. Hawks and owls now have had protection so long that the impact they have is huge. Ask ANYONE who raises quail, pheasants or runs a bird hunting preserve. Oh they may not come clean to just anybody because it’s not PC and they don’t care to start the pissing match. They may then feel compelled to tell you how these things are dealt with minus the 25 year government study.

Something else hard to find is a kid that traps, another casualty to a PC world.

WNV, I do believe it has impact in some areas and some years, but it doesn’t effect just grouse. It doesn’t affect grouse at all in my area because there are zero. Lack of cover, I don’t buy into that either. There are many of us that are over 50 that could show you cover, young mixed disturbed, logged, green briar edged crab apple thickets and grape vine cover up against umbrella pines. 0 grouse for 30 years.

They faked the moon landing. Then, once they actually got there, turns out it’s made of cheese.

-Victor

This assertation has been presented here before and it has been scientifically and conclusively proven wrong, period.

Both Dave Suponski as well as Edgar Spencer have the scientific evidence on file.

I've heard that opinion about turkeys v. grouse before but there are too many other contributing factors not to be included in the very complex equation. And it is recently also a scientifically proven fact that WNV is responsible for a significant percentage of ruffed grouse mortalities.





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The results of tests on the various Parker barrel steels demonstrated that there were slight differences within the broader range of barrel steels. Those results were published in the Parker Pages and discussed here numerous times . I think this was about ten years ago that the old inaccurate suggestion that the barrel steels were the same was put to rest. I am surprised to see it surface again. There is always somebody who does not get the word.

The barrels were sourced from various manufacturers .

I do not know about the rest of the country, but here in New Hampshire our grouse population is directly effected each spring by just where the Moose walk. :)

Yes there are many factors causing the grouse decline but I believe the biggest single cause is without a doubt hawks and owls .

I know in our region of PA grouse numbers are effected by various factors, forest age/habitat type, predation, nesting season weather patterns and WNV just to name a few. In PA less than 10% of the forested acres are under 15 years old, the rest is mature/closed canopy forest which leads to a sterile environment on the forest floor. We have more predators now than even 20-30 years ago. We never had coyote and fisher. Bobcat populations are way up. I have bobcat on every trail cam here and I run 24-25 cams all year. Add in birds of prey and egg eating snakes and they all add up. Our spring weather over the past 10ish years has been wet. That is not conducive to chick survival. WNV has been proven to have high mortality rates within grouse populations in PA. If elevations are under 1200' the rate of infection is high due to the species of mosquito that transmits the WNV. They do not do well in higher elevations. Our PGC is addressing the problem. Lisa Williams is the head biologist for the grouse program. Se is very good at what she does, I trust her and have a working relationship with her. They did find flushing numbers were up over 20% in our region last season so there is hope.