Upland wingshooting tips?

No substitute for practice. I read somewhere once it takes about 10,000 repititions to get proficient at something. 23 years ago with my first upland dog I started shooting clays to try and live up to the dog's work. I was fortunate to join a fairly informal club and we'd practice low gun walking slowly from the numbered skeet station towards the centre post with the puller throwing random birds at will with the machines set on wobble, birds taken as incomers or on the turn going away. A pretty close approximation of upland shots and angles and the reflexes required. "Pullers Choice"
Start with regular skeet low gun then move up to wobble skeet and sporting clays but keep the low gun to practice your move/mount/shoot
 
Excellent thread, but I am a bit surprised at the lack of advice concerning the type of gun best used for shooting grouse in tight quarters.

One is best served with the shorter overall length that a SxS or O/U offers. Pumps and semis are much longer overall and quick handling suffers. 26" bbls are a good compromise between handling, weight and fast. Open chokes SK/SK or IC/M seems best and in a smaller/lighter 16ga or 20ga. 3" loads not needed. I use either #8 or #7.5 and #6 later in the season when the leaves are down.

Up till last week, I had 3 upland guns. All work very well for grouse and woodcock ...

- SKB M100 25" IC/M 20ga SxS
- SKB M500 26" IC/M 20ga O/U
- Charles Daly (Citori) 28" IC/IC 20ga O/U SOLD

The shorter SKBs are my faves, but the CD handled very well as well. The M500 is becoming the one I like best and may sell the M100 down the road. All are faster than my 26" 870 12ga and much easier to carry in a ready position. I keep the 12ga for waterfowl and range blasting.

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sk8r said:
Jack O'Connor once wrote "... if you find a fella claiming he can tell you how to hunt grouse, throw the book in the fire, because if he lies about that, he'll lie about everything else too.... ". He said in one of his books that wing-shooting grouse was the hardest shooting he ever did and that he had a good day if he hit one in five. Lots of good suggestions above, but ultimately you'll find the method, the gun and the load that works best for you, but, even then, well, let's just say that Jack and I have about the same averages (and I been doin' this stuff for more than 50 years.... :( ) . Just have some fun takin' long walks in the woods, carrying a gun. ;) :D
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Elsewhere on this forum, I once stated that grouse hunting is what I'm best at and got swarmed and slapped around for bragging. Actually, I never even said I was good at it. But I will pass on some tips that you may find helpful. Most of them are things I read in books by such grouse luminaries as Burton Spiller and have found to be true:

- Shoot every time you flush a bird, even if it seems hopeless and even if it IS hopeless. You need to develop the reflex.* BUT always follow up on a shot- birds can be badly hit and found dead a ways on, plus as already stated here you may well flush them again.

- Use a short barrel with an open choke and small shot. 71/2 is actually large for grouse. It's hits on bones that brings them down, not blowing big holes in them.

- Some hit grouse will indeed fly on quite a ways and may be lost. If you have a double barrel, try practicing a useful double tap. It took me a while to get over my backwoods instinct to conserve ammo, but in your lifetime you will have a lot more shotshells than you will chances at a wingshot. Plus it's more humane.

-Pattern your gun and choose the best shell. High brass shells may actually be counterproductive. You need a long shot column for wingshooting and a large powder charge may be blowing a big hole right through it. Also, less recoil makes for better shooting.

- When walking in the woods through likely cover, try taking a few steps and stopping for an interval. This imitates the sound of a fox getting ready to pounce and will panic grouse into taking off straight up into the air (rather than running away, which they strongly prefer).

- And yes, many or most of the grouse you pass will walk or run away if they can, and you will never know they were there.

- Use your ears. When I still had good hearing, I would often hear the grouse before I ever saw them. They make a clucking alarm sound and/or rustle leaves when you get close. You may think this mitigates against wearing hearing protection. Yes it does, but if you don't wear such protection, or if you have protection that allows it, listen.

- You have to strongly believe the grouse are there. It's a problem with a bird that can be so rare in some years, but if you don't do that everything else is hopeless.


* When I was really into it, I would find myself mounting an imaginary gun and following through, complete with a trigger pull, when a grouse flushed in midsummer. That's when I was a real ruffed grouse hunter. When I was with fellow bird watchers and did that, I believe they found it odd, or worse.
 
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SuperCub said:
Excellent thread, but I am a bit surprised at the lack of advice concerning the type of gun best used for shooting grouse in tight quarters.

One is best served with the shorter overall length that a SxS or O/U offers. Pumps and semis are much longer overall and quick handling suffers. 26" bbls are a good compromise between handling, weight and fast. Open chokes SK/SK or IC/M seems best and in a smaller/lighter 16ga or 20ga. 3" loads not needed. I use either #8 or #7.5 and #6 later in the season when the leaves are down.

Up till last week, I had 3 upland guns. All work very well for grouse and woodcock ...

- SKB M100 25" IC/M 20ga SxS
- SKB M500 26" IC/M 20ga O/U
- Charles Daly (Citori) 28" IC/IC 20ga O/U SOLD

The shorter SKBs are my faves, but the CD handled very well as well. The M500 is becoming the one I like best and may sell the M100 down the road. All are faster than my 26" 870 12ga and much easier to carry in a ready position. I keep the 12ga for waterfowl and range blasting.

015_zps1b14ed4d.jpg
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Got this same one myself.

Full agreement here. ;)
 
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