Great to be back

[Tom Flanigan]

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.

[C.O.B.]

I habitually use 8's for Grouse esp in the right barrel as the season wears on the left tube will get 7's or 71/2. I almost never use a load heavier than 7/8oz in both the 16's and 20's the 28's are obviously less and while I'm no fan of a 12, a Purdey light game gun caught my attention a while back. It's a tad over 6lbs and the 27 inch barrels are choked .004 and .008 and it's just about perfect. The only shells iv'e used are RST 2" paper and 3/4oz of 7's or 8's.

A good dog can make a bad shot become a great one. I have had the dog retrieve grouse and pheasants that I didn't think were hit or not hit hard enough and would have been lost to coyote bait. IMHO bird hunting with out a dog is just a walk in the woods with a gun.

Grouse season is a short ten months away. It will be a special October as it will be Ike's first full year in the uplands. I'm thinking he will need a gun in his honor and it should be a 16 with 26 inch barrels and open chokes

Ted RST makes a shell with #10 shot. They worked fine on woodcock and quail but hunting in the thick cover of the Upper Peninsula and never knowing what's at the end of a point be it grouse or woodcock I lean towards a larger shot size.