Hunt Report: Eastern PA, Day 2

A bird! Nice tail on this one. (His orange hunting vest is hanging on a tree at left! Click to see bigger.)

Brendan’s brother Sean, a regular hunting compadre of ours in Maine, joined us for the remainder of the trip. We were psyched to have Sean there. He’s a good shot, sees birds with some kind of Superman X-ray vision, and with three guys we can cover more ground WAY more efficiently – and the covers in this area are pretty big.

The weather forecast was for snow Monday night changing to freezing rain in the morning. We were pretty bummed – not about getting wet (though we weren’t psyched about that either), and not about the fact that it seems like we haven’t been able to catch a weather break this season. Rather, we knew that with rain freezing on top of the snow we’d sound in the woods like workers at the Cap’n Crunch plant: the grouse would hear us a long way off.

But we sure as heck we’re going to go hunting so we geared up and took off.

When we got to the entrance of the road leading into our hunting area, a PA DNR plow truck was there – closing off the road. Now, we’d been on that road the day before and it was fine. It was plowed. The prior night had dumped maybe an inch or 2 of snow on the road, but it was in no way dangerous. So Jay hopped out and asked the guy why they were closing the road since grouse season ran until the 22nd and at the other end of the road was a sign that said the road would be open until the 22nd.

SOL at first....

Short version: the guy told Jay whom to call, Jay made the call and they kept the road open. We could picture them all shaking their heads, warm and dry, saying, “Grouse hunters. They’re nuts!”

Yep.

Because they didn’t open the road back up right away, we changed our plan and hunted a different cover. This also is a big area, but the habitat changes about every quarter to half mile or so which makes it very huntable.

The bros Haines walking in to spot number one.

Sean put up the first bird. It was ground-roosting next to a tree that was about 12 inches in diameter. It wasn’t fully under the snow – just really its butt was in the snow. Surprisingly, X-ray-vision Sean didn’t see the bird until it moved. It ran around the tree then flushed, of course making sure the tree was between it and Sean. Not only that, it flew to Sean’s right, meaning no shot possible for Brendan or Jay. But at least it was a bird in relatively short order.

First Shots Fired

We skirted the edge of an old swamp and were walking through another area where we’d put up a bird or two in the past. It sure as heck wasn’t classic grouse cover, and even less so in the winter – everything looked bare and widely spaced. That’s exactly what Jay was thinking when a bird got up in front of him.

Sean on the edge of an old swamp. See any ice on the trees?!

He was coming up behind a tree of a similar diameter to the one from which Sean’s bird had flushed, and was not expecting a flush. The bird got up fast but took off straight ahead, slightly quartering right. If Jay had had his gun up or had been carrying it in anticipation of a bird flushing (like he should’ve been doing anyway), it was a makeable shot. But as you might’ve guessed, that’s not what happened.

Jay was walking at this tree from a point 10:00 from the bird's ground roost. Looks like it went around the tree under the snow, then flushed (click to see bigger).

He got the gun up all the way…to his bicep…blasted off two quick shots, wounded a couple of trees and the bird kept right on flying. He was ticked, but also happy to get another flush. We did get a flush further down a ways, out of a tree, which might have been the same bird. We weren’t sure.

Spot No. 2

We finished the day at the spot we intended to hunt first. This also is quite a ways back into the woods, and isn’t close to a trail. It’s also behind clear-cut regrowth, which is the only part most people would hunt. Brendan originally found this spot through a combination of Google Earth and lots of walking.

The spot has everything we like about a good grouse cover:

> A slightly elliptical shape, meaning boundaries on all four sides
> Not too wide, in this case just a little too big for three hunters walking 30 yards apart
> An all-important “low area” (in this case a swamp) on one side
> A mix of tree types in this case beech, birch, cherry and those “red bud” food bushes
> Low-to-the-ground pines

We ended up flushing three birds in this cover. The first two didn’t provide a shot, but the last one ran from a low fir right in front Brendan, then had to take off low and was done. Brendan smacked it with one shot. We were psyched!

Day 2 Roundup

A good day, even with this weather. Luckily we ddn't get the wind.

We hunted for about 4 hours, putting up five birds, which is about one bird every 45 minutes. We were happy with that. Three shots taken and one bird on the ground wasn’t bad either.

We had high hopes for our last half day of hunting. Since we hunted in the rain almost all day, we just hoped our clothes would dry out by the morning.

Category: 2010-11 reports, Hunt reports, PA, Ruffed Grouse, SBH