grouse on the ground?

Anyone who is not wearing a Harris tweed jacket and hat, carrying a fine english double and controlling a fine bird dog with only the purest pedigree should be allowed to hunt upland game birds. pooh pooh on you.:p

Not! Any wanker can do with what he wants with a grouse as far as I'm concerned. I grabbed one around the neck once and gave it the twirl. That one was so confident in it's camo that I doubt even the best dog would have put it up.
 
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Monty said:
If we're trying to be "fair", then let's just hunt with our bare hands...
I'm with you guys.
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thats how we hunt um round here.
the most common ways to hunt grouse are:
you truck/cars bumber
sling shot
stick in hand
or just your bare hands. :D
its all the other none gun loving hippies who hunt like this, but it works.
i for one would rather use a gun than the above methods, but what ever works works i guess.
oh, what about when they are in a tree? they arnt on the ground, but they arnt in flight.
 
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I do not condem anyone who shoots a grouse on the ground. I have shot them that way myself, and out of trees as well. However, I do not find those shots satisfying. As I age into senility, I find all my pleasure in the quality of the hunt. A fast flushing ruffed grouse on a wooded trail is wingshooting at its finest. I can come home empty handed but elated with the hunt, so long as I have had a few "sporting chances". If I walk around all day and come home with a bag which I simply swatted off the ground, I feel like I have missed out on something. I want the wingshots, that is what I use my shotguns for, the more challenging the better and nothing else is quite as satisfying. Except for chasing sharptail grouse, of course.

Sharptail
 
I have taken em on the ground and dont really see a problem with it,but I do believe you should be on your own two feet walking through grouse coverts and not sitting on a four wheeler or truck with the engine idling.
I use a GSP and a Lab (usually together) if and when the shorthair points,my peckerhead lab with flush it ,which is fine but its usually premature and I'm always out of position.Almost never see them on the ground unless I take the shorthair by himself,and then I always flush em.
 
my dad got me hooked on hunting by taking me to places where grouse were otfen seen on the ground and less weary... then upgraded the challenge by switching me unto more nervous grouse offering fast wingshots.

I'm older now...I preffer them on the wing. I say preffer. I will still take an occasional one on the ground if occasion present's itself....rare now that I hunt with german shorhair pointers (taking all the lead shots out of them with tweezers takes more patience than I can muster ;)


So, on the wing, on the ground...fine by me.
 
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I usually hunt grouse with my kids. They pack .22's, sometimes the older one uses a .410. These days I let them do almost all of the shooting.

Have to say I prefer shooting on the wing, but one of the best grouse hunting trips in recent memory was a couple of years ago with a .22. I scared them off the road and followed them into the trees. Spotting them up in the trees and then taking their heads off from a distance is pretty fun. The Kids and I had a very nice picnic that day.

Yesterday I was out on my own and I bagged some Ptarmigan with a 12 ga. . I'd say that half were in flight, and half standing around. A stupid bird doesn't receive any sympathy from me and besides I've never noticed that those ones taste any different from the ones that were more gratifying to shoot.

Incidently, about twelve years ago my wife shot one on the wing with a .22; complete fluke, but nice shot none-the-less.
 
The way i see it, a dead gouse will be a cooked grouse, so no matter how it happens I will be happy if I go home with a few, regardless of how they are taken.

I will admit however, that some of my best grouse shots have been on the wing, but i've also taken my fair share on the ground. I find it just as sporting to flush a willy old grouse 3 or 4 times before finally getting a shot... regarless of whether he was flying, on the ground, or in a tree.
 
I hunt grouse with a .177 caliber CO2 pellet pistol so on the ground or in a tree is usually the way they get whacked. I have shot a few on the wing with my 12, but that in my opinion was lucky shooting.
Old school is definetly on the wing. My Grandpa would never shoot them on the ground or in a tree.
 
I take them however I can get them. I've never met or hunted with anyone in Ontario that had a problem with "ground swatting". We don't call them grouse either they're pa'tridge around here.
 
I wish there were enough grouse where I hunt that I could walk them up and wing shoot them.

But there isn't so I opportunistically shoot them when I see them with the 410 or 22. Which is usually by the road because when I'm in the bush I've got a big game rifle in hand.

And threemorwishes, are you permitted to hunt with a handgun in Ontario?

Not allowed in B.C.
 
I just shoot grouse where I find them.....mostly with a 410 at the side of the road.

I suppose there is a certain sport to flushing them and wing shooting, but I am shooting them cause I want to eat them. I don't really view hunting as a sport.
 
All, promptly shot on the ground by the Winnie .22 in the background.

In my book, flushing a standing grouse for the sake of a "sporting" shot, is equivalent to spooking a buck offering you a broadside.

grouse_1_3_1.jpg
 
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Pellet pistols under 500 fps are not considered firearms according to the federal government and therefore do not fall under the title of handgun. This makes them legal for hunting in Ontario, I actually have heard of people using paintball guns on grouse at times, apparently it does not break the flesh but kills them with shock. I have a pellet pistol but I have noticed the CO2 varies too much with temp to be accurate throughout the day. Does anyone have a .22 cal pellet pistol around 450-500 fps, spring not CO2?
 
Martin I think that the accepted reality is that winter habitat availability and spring weather and not hunting pressure are the determining factors for grouse numbers. Hunting methods during legal seasons will not reduce or increase the overall numbers at the start of any given season.
 
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