SBH Hunt Report: Maine Grouse, Day 2
How hot was it? We hunted in T-shirts!
Day 2 was hot. We’re talking temperature, not birds. In the middle of the day it felt like temps were in the 80s, but were in the low 60s. Hardly any wind, strong sun all day.
We spent this day prospecting around Jackman, looking for new covers. We succeeded, in a way.
After some unproductive “didn’t really have a good feeling about it but sick of driving” ground-stomping with no birds to show for it, we stumbled across a hillside that seemingly had everything we were looking for: alders near the road changing to aspens, water, stumps, ferns, rocks, the whole grouse deal.
Except for grouse, apparently. We hunted just about every angle imaginable up and down that hill. (Did we mention it was hot?) We looked at about 100 stumps, and Brendan finally saw three or four grouse turds on a couple, but that was a close as we got to the wily critters. (If you’re reading this and thinking you know what we did wrong, we think we do too – that’s coming.)
We did flush a few woodcock at the bottom of the hill and Jay shot one, but that was it.
No grouse here.... (Click to see it bigger.)
Later
By 3:00 and with only four woodie flushes on the day, we were back on the road to some of our old covers. At 3:40 we stepped into a cover we call Yogi Berra, and promptly flushed a grouse. A good sign but a bummer because that was the first one we’d seen and we flushed him just walking into the cover. We got him to re-flush, but way out so no shot.
By the time we were done there, at about 4:30, we’d flushed another grouse (twice) and five woodies. Jay missed the first grouse flush completely – just like fishing on a slow, hot day, he wasn’t ready for “the bite.” We chased the bird and got it to flush again, Jay shot twice and missed. Good stuff, Jay!
The last spot of the day was a cover we’d hunted the day before and saw no grouse. But we refused to believe there were no grouse there: Brendan has this spot marked on the DeLorme atlas as “KG,” meaning “known grouse.” It’s a grouse magnet.
Sure enough we put up five grouse there, at least two of which should’ve come home with us that night, but somehow didn’t. We’re still not sure how they didn’t. We also put up lots of woodcock.
How much vegetation was there? That's Brendan's head, barely poking over the raspberries.
Day 2 Count
Seven grouse, about 15 flushes, and 20+ woodcock. Jay shot two woodies because he couldn’t help himself: We were already reining in on woodies, choosing not to shoot them so as not to spook grouse and because we can only eat so many woodcock.
Also, the woodies were kind of easy to shoot: For the most part they were flying straight out in front, maybe because of the thick vegetation. The grouse flushed straight and low too, for the most part, but paradoxically this made them harder to get on. Fast chickens….
What Do Grouse Do on Hot Days?
Well, we answered that question: Nothing. That’s what they do. They hang out all day drinking margaritas or whatever, then wait until temps cool to move. That’s what we learned from days 1 and 2 this year.
Notable
> Three key clothing items on this day:the LL Bean Upland Technical Pants (super light, articulated, great), a T-shirt of some kind, and a lightweight vest. It was all about lightening the load. If you buy the Bean pants, which we highly recommend, definitely get the waist a size bigger.
Tomorrow: Day 3 Hunt Report
Category: 2010-11 reports, Hunt reports, LL Bean, ME, Ruffed Grouse, SBH, Woodcock
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I have been in NH (Pittsburg area) and Maine (Bosebuck &
Rangley) for the past 10 days. Woodcock were just filtering
in where I was. Pats were plentyful and had some decent
dog work. the weather was a little on the wet side for a few
days but it cleared up just fine. Wish all of you going
in that direction good hunting.