Hows the grouse count this year in your area?

Finally got out last weekend and the most grouse I've seen since the 90's. Sunday buddy and I limited 10 ruffed each. Saw about a dozen after. Monday in a different area shot our limits again and saw at least 60 more on the way home. Could have limited on spruce at 10 each and sharptails at 3 each as well both days but getting fussy in my old age. Maybe give it a try again this weekend if weather backs off a it, snowing hard today.
 
Ruffed 2- dogs... Here is the final at the table with a half portion of sidekicks. Marinate in soya/lemon juice pepper and garlic.



et voila...

 
I was hunting solo and scored one grouse and zero black bear (two weeks behind based on my scat take), zero deer (just not there), and a healthy group of elk :). Elk in an area where you can't even put in a draw. Oh well, nice to sniff them out.

Better though was that I went for 6 days and quit smoking. 5 weeks on Tuesday coming. Here was my camp.

 
VanIsleCam said:
I was hunting solo and scored one grouse and zero black bear (two weeks behind based on my scat take), zero deer (just not there), and a healthy group of elk :). Elk in an area where you can't even put in a draw. Oh well, nice to sniff them out.

Better though was that I went for 6 days and quit smoking. 5 weeks on Tuesday coming. Here was my camp.

Click to expand...

That looks like paradise Cam, thanks for sharing.
 
Other than the 72 hours of nicotine withdrawal, it was great Lex.

Honestly though I highly recommend it. If you smoke, drive out into the woods and see if you can stay out and break the physiological addiction.... Mental is actually harder once you get back to civilization.
 
Went for a little walk in the high country. Found a grouse and a first for me...Ptarmigan, they were a wee bit higher up than the grouse I will admit.
 
So far this year, 14 out of 22.

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I am becoming quite envious in reading some of these posts. I have walked something like 150 clicks over the past 4 weekends. I recently drove a couple hundred clicks one way in order to hunt what everybody around here calls the grouse hunting mecca. In total, I have seen and taken one bird, and gotten a fleeting glimpse of 3 others. The most interesting thing was the discovery of an intestinal nematode in the bird I shot...Ascaridia bonasae. Completely normal to find them, but I had never actually seen it before. So...if you find what looks like a skinny white worm about 2 or 3 inches long (kind of like a skinny bean sprout with tapered ends) while cleaning your bird, it is nothing to worry about and merely spilled out of the gut while the bird was being cleaned.
 
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Seems like folks should come to NWO. Literally counted 41 birds the other day over and above my limit. Shot 5 Friday, Saturday, and today my wife and myself harvested another 10. They are thick in the Dryden area. One of the better years for sure.
 
Had a bit of a rough go of it on thanksgiving weekend in northern Ontario. Grass and weeds are still thick and it's not that cold at night. The wind made them skittish too. We got 8 in 3 days and missed more than that. Previous years we'd get that many in one morning.
Overall I think it's just late warm weather. When it gets cold it'll be a hell of a season.
 
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