Harold….I appreciate your response. We all want to kill quickly and cleanly. To an extent, all things being equal, the type of cover we hunt has a role in what shot size we choose. My coverts are very thick where clear shots are not the norm.
I have also hunted grouse in Saskatchewan which is a lot different from hunting in my home coverts in the east. The Saskatchewan ruffed grouse were in the wooded areas adjacent to the fields where I hunted sharp tails and huns. The cover was more open and the birds were not concentrated like they are in my home coverts. Relatively open, longer shots were the norm and I would guess that I had to walk about a mile for each flush. Very different grouse hunting. I used my sharp tail and hun load of 1 1/8 oz. of #6’s in a light 12 bore.
My tutelage was from my grandfather who was an old time grouse hunter and he learned by gunning with a former market gunner who shot grouse for the New York City market. There were many old grouse hunters in Pawling, NY that were still alive when I started hunting, although none of them still gunned. And to a man, they all swore by 10’s with just a few using 9’s. If I’m not mistaken, the poet laureate of grouse hunting, Burt Spiller, used 9’s for grouse in his VH 20 bore.
I loved talking grouse hunting with those old gunners. I remember them all as if it were yesterday. There were some real characters but they accounted for a lot of grouse in their day. And if modesty permits me to say, they were impressed with the numbers of birds I was taking and considered me one of their grouse gunning tribe. High complement for a young boy.
Back in those days when I hunted many days a week, I was killing over 50 birds a season. I carried an envelope in my pocket and I plucked a tail feather from each bird so that I could tally up at the end of the year. In more recent years, my career has allowed me to hunt only the weekends. Even so, I often topped 30 birds in a good season.
Since the second year of grouse gunning, I have never hunted without a good bird dog. I am confident that I have not lost many birds that have flown away after being hit. I’ve never come across old shot in any of my birds and I trusted my dog to eventually find any hit bird as we hunted on. They have found a few over the years but I can count them on one hand.
So it’s all good. We each have our preferences and opinions and I respect yours.
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