Grouse

I'm a step om the wings type o' guy when it comes to grouse.
Nothing makes me angry like having to pick up some one else's hulls, be it on farm land or in the bush.
paper or no, the brass is still there, and the paper does not decompose right away anyway.
Cat
 
The coyote thing made me remember a tail.

I was hunting grose with a bow and had a couple. I hit one in the body and it flew off with the arrow hanging out of it. I knew it would not go far and die so followed it into the bush and listened. I moved in farther and listened. Then I heard something moving in the leaves. Here comes a coyote who was not aware of me.

I stood still and figured he would find my grouse for me and then I'd scare him off and get arrow and bird.

He started looking as though he smelled something and I thought things were going good.

Then he must have got a hard sniff of me cause he almost turned inside out getting out of there.

Never found the grouse or arrow.

I pull on the feet for the breast but often save the thighs.
 
I can honestly say I've never shot a grouse. Too few of them around the farm to be shooting in my opinion. However, my upland bird of choice is the pheasant! A quick headshot from a rimfire rifle, pluck them clean (saving the feathers for tying flies), and bake like a chicken. My strategy for grouse, which I hope to get a couple of this fall, would be much the same. The wife is a dark meat nut and I can't see her wanting to waste a single speck of meat, although I don't imagine there is much to a grouse besides breasts and thighs.
 
Maybe give them 5 min before you skin them… or the heart will still be beating lol… this one we blew the head off with a 22mag from 15-20 yards away

The Heart was still beating 1-2 min after head cut off. And skinned. (by “step on the wings”)


[youtube]MV8EiGseulU[/youtube]
 
This thread makes me hungry...Grouse is gotta be one of my favorite foods.
I like the disclamer "Don't watch if you don't like seeing dead stuff" lol. No angry comments yet though.

My dad use to just go for the breast meat, just rip the skin open and pull the breast meat out, cutting off at the shoulders, certainly quick and easy but a shame to waste the rest.
 
M12shooter said:
Step and pull usually within the hour. Don't care to leave grouse remains in plain view as I don't like to advertize. Clumps of tail feathers and such are a dead ringer for good grouse trails. I even pitch my shell casings out into the bush well out of range of watchful eyes.
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You should NOT be discarding your spent hulls in the woods. Pack in, pack out.
 
drache said:
Well it's getting to be that time and now this question came up with some coworkers so I figure I'd ask it here....

How do you clean your grouse? Do you do it right away or wait until later? Do you pluck them like a chicken or do the old step on the wings routine? If you do the wings routine how many times have you had the legs come off in your hands? :D

what is your prefered method and taking a grouse, rifle, shotgun, other?

What about funny or highly amusing or amazing stories of hunting these delicious little bird?
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Remington 870 Express 12 gauge with 7 1/2 shot size.

Step on wings, pull legs.

Good to go.
 
Being new to hunting, I am continually seeking as many tips and tricks on how to field dress my little victories. I work for the railway and work out of a smaller terminal where a lot of the men hunt and we often have a lot of time to kill on our long trips. Saying that, they are and have been very gracious in teaching me most of what I know - what else are we going to talk about for 8 to 18 hours?

Either way, late one night on our return trip home, a prairie chicken/hungarian partridge decided to collide with the front windshield of the locomotive. It was a relatively cool October evening and as its feathers fluttered against the wind, I mentioned to my co-worker how I've never partook in nor field dressed a hun.

Buddy being a farm boy with hunting roots said triumphantly, "Well all ya gotta do is step on duh wings, grab his feet there and give a good yank up."

I thought that sounded pretty damn easy, so I asked if he had any issues with me trying while running the locomotive. So buddy goes out on the front of the unit (which is brutally windy), grabs said dead chicken and throws it like chopped liver over to me. Meanwhile, the conductor who was newly qualified, definitely not a hunter, from the city and completely baffled with his mouth wide open, "Seriously? Is this really happening?"

Sooooo anyhow, as we start climbing our controlling grade with the units screaming, I step out the back door with my gloves and said dead chicken in the hand. Losing speed and not wanting to waist time, I place my size 10.5's on each wing, get a good grip on them skinny legs and gave that chicken a good... Well, pull.

Of course my mentor was too busy making coffee to guide me through the process, so I though I had it all under control. As I yank on those legs I couldn't help but think, "Damn this thing is built like a brick s**t house!" This was shortly followed by the sound of bones breaking and skin tearing... I then realized I had sodomized this poor bird beyond all compare. In one hand I had a leg and in the other a leg, some meat and a string of inards.

Confused on how I butchered such a simple procedure, I then proceeded to enter the cab with my handiwork. Buddy takes one look at my... creation and laughing hysterically with coffee in hand, "Good Lord man! What have you done?!" Meanwhile that poor, young conductor went white as a ghost, cracked the window and stuck half his body outside to get some fresh air. Needless to say, that green vest conductor always seems to book off when its his turn to work with me.
 
Though I've personally never gone for them yet, my personal best on the train is 24 partridge at once. Once we got to our final terminal, I opened the front door and all you could hear was the sound of dead birds falling to the ground. I counted 24 on the ground and on the unit, never mind what fell off the unit on the way in. One sneaky partridge got stuck in a headlight after it used its head to break the lens. Honestly felt bad after cause it is such a waste...
 
holdingfast said:
Though I've personally never gone for them yet, my personal best on the train is 24 partridge at once. Once we got to our final terminal, I opened the front door and all you could hear was the sound of dead birds falling to the ground. I counted 24 on the ground and on the unit, never mind what fell off the unit on the way in. One sneaky partridge got stuck in a headlight after it used its head to break the lens. Honestly felt bad after cause it is such a waste...
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Christ.

Salvage what you can!

Anytime I see a bird clipped I try and yank out the breast.
Picked up a few deer this way too.

Can't take all the meat due to damage, but I take what I can.

I breast the birds and then clip the wings. The legs are a little stringy in my opinion so they get left for the dogs.
 
I'm a step on the wings, pull the legs and most times it works just fine. Rinse off the blood and whatnot then into the cooler with the wings on for I.D. if I get stopped by the yogi's.
I have four events to tell that stand out in my experience with the ruffies all no bullshize.

When I just first started so many years ago after a friend gave me one to eat and thereby start me on hunting the buggers, I had borrowed a shotgun and merrily walking a trail in search of my quarry. Back then it must have been a huge peak in the populations cause they were thick as theives at that time.
So as i said, walking the trail and come to a clump of evergreens when I hear one skitter underneath the nearest evergreen. I crouch down, see him and quicklly let off a well enough placed shot to knock him down. (for those that abhor ground sluicing birds i didn' know at the time that it ain't "sportin") Go in to retreive it and as I am picking up the bird out of the corner of my eye I spot another one about ten feet away doing the flapping death dance and go grab him to finish off humanely and lo there is a third two feet away from number two stone dead. THREE WITH ONE SHOT!!!!!

Went fishing in Ontario on a May long, we always camped on an island or out of the way shoreline so no one would complain about us wild drinking bon fire starting yell all night fall down liquiored up teenagers. During one half sober moment I had to take a crap..... find a log, drop my drawers and prepare to release logs. Well at that moment a ruffie busts out wings booming from the bushes right beside me. Friends..... I do know literally and physically the meaning of "scared the crap out of me".

Years later I was hunting them with a buddy and his black lab, first time I have ever had any dog bouncing around while I'm hunting and of course I am nervous as hell that I might shoot and the damn dog will run in front of me at the wrong time. So sure enough the dog happens to put up a ruffie on the left side of me, the ruff flies away from the dog towards me, I'm tracking with the shotgun freaking that I see the dog in my field of vision holding off pulling the trigger and the ruff flies into and strikes my shotguns barrels sending a poof of feathers floating down around me. I had to break open the gun to eject the ruffie.
lol, ok the last line was bull shize, I turned and got him going away.

Lastly, I have related this in the past but once I was walking the trail and from upwind a pack of Gray Wolves appeared ahead of me. I stopped, counted nine of them, watched as they went off the side to scent mark trees and generally doing what the do I guess. I still to this day remember the absolute slate gray coloring of them and how big they at least seemed. I was so amazed that they did not detect/see me. When they got to about 30 yards of me I fired in the air and they vanished.

Tim
 
As mentioned above, wings, legs, necks and backs make the finest broth on earth. Keep em in a bag in the freezer until you have enough to simmer for an afternoon. Refreeze in cubes when concentrated and treat colds all winter with them.
The heart makes a nice instant tartar (use your teeth to mince)
If you are patient and fond of the best in food take the time to pluck so you can cook with the skin on. Whole other world of goodness. If you want to really impress the ladies make up a stuffing of gizzard contents. wild cranberry..........
Brown with a torch and do not over cook.
 
my mom put this stupid colourful flower decoration in the front window at our cottage a couple summers ago. I think we had 2 grouse go kamikaze that day trying to get at the fake flowers. All we'd hear was THUD then go see a feather stuck to the window and a dead grouse on the ground. We ate both and they never tasted so good. My mom ended up taking it down after that, didn't want to kill the entire herd :)
 
DVXDUDE said:
my mom put this stupid colourful flower decoration in the front window at our cottage a couple summers ago. I think we had 2 grouse go kamikaze that day trying to get at the fake flowers. All we'd hear was THUD then go see a feather stuck to the window and a dead grouse on the ground. We ate both and they never tasted so good. My mom ended up taking it down after that, didn't want to kill the entire herd :)
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Send me the flower if you are not using it, I have a place for it.
 
shimmer said:
When I get to go out for grouse, which is never enough, I'm a step on the wings method kind of guy.
My parents had a "pet" grouse at their place a couple of years ago - whenever they went around the maple sugar shack it was a maximum of 5 minutes until "Gracie" showed up. She would follow my Dad around, sit on the wood pile close to him, she even tried to land on his hat once. Gracie use to chase my Mom and peck at her occasionally - my Dad thought it was an old girlfriend reincarnated. They sent me some pictures of her - I'll have to see if I can find them and post them later. She was around for the better part of a year and then she just didn't show up anymore.
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Tell your parents I'm sorry...:)
 
Had this happen a couple of times. I had the breast and wings in my hand as I was explaining to the mother in law how everything works. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it's heart was still beating.

starpuss said:
Maybe give them 5 min before you skin them… or the heart will still be beating lol… this one we blew the head off with a 22mag from 15-20 yards away

The Heart was still beating 1-2 min after head cut off. And skinned. (by “step on the wings”)


[youtube]MV8EiGseulU[/youtube]
Click to expand...
 
Knife tip in the vent, straight up to the neck just under the skin. Pull back both sides towards the wings, fingers in between the breast and the crop and pull straight down towards the vent again. Save what feathers you want for tying flies and the balance is a nice bit of coyote "enticement".
 
I like the step and pull method.

A cousin of mine while we were muzzleloader hunting for deer discoverd that the neck of a grouse is the same size as a .50 cal ball, he never did find the head.
A driver I used to work with left a job site one day and as he headed down the road a grouse took off out of the cedar bush only to hit the passenger side mirror and promptly land on the seat beside him dead.
 
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