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Hunting grouse with shotgun

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peterk123

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Never done it. I've hunted turkey with a shotgun.. I've hunted mountain grouse with a 22 rifle in the mountains where they fly up onto a lodge pine branch. But I just found an area where they are hiding in the grass and sage. Only way to get them is in the air. I own a 12 gauge 28 inch barreled gas operated shotgun. What size/type of shot do you recommend that won't disintegrate the guys?
 
I generally prefer #6 over 7.5's for grouse. Grouse can get the hell out of Dodge very quickly and the hitting power of #6's is much better at distance for that second shot. If you were shooting a O/U I'd say 7.5's are ok for the first barrel.
 
woods chicken is the most fun hunting.
shoot them in the head.
i use 20ga with 6 shot. improved choke, or modified.
you will hear them before they fly, you gotta have a good eye and be fast.
 
peterk123 said:
We got out today. Kicked them up four times. Never got close enough. Man they are skittish in the fields.
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How far away are they flushing? Is your pup staying close?

I've dropped some large pheasant roosters at or beyond 60 yards but that was with no. 5 shot. I'm shooting 3" 20 ga magnum shells but your 12 ga with standard high brass shells will probably be slightly better in terms of pattern effectiveness.

No clue if this tactic will work for western grouse species but it always worked very well for me with valley quail in the California foothills. It also works here for pheasants that like to run. If they flush and I don't drop them they'll go into cover somewhere. I and a partner and/or dog will spread out and go in at a wider part of the cover and hunt towards a point or corner of the cover. Assuming they are runners, they'll try to stay ahead of you and remain in cover until they get caught in that corner. Once they feel enough pressure they will flush out of that corner and into the wild blue yonder (as in a nice open shot).

Glad you saw a few. The area I hunted in Maine this fall had something like a 80% to 90% chick mortality due to heavy rains right around hatch time.
 
I couldn't get close enough to figure out which specuess of grouse they were. The ones we get in the mountains will let you step on them, then they just go into a tree. These things would bail on us when we were 50 to 75 yards away. Pup was usually very close to us.

It was fun. I think we need to split up more and hope we flush them in the direction of the other person.
 
Be sure to wear hunter orange hats even if not required by law. Bird hunting often calls for instinctive 'faster than you can think' shots and the blaze orange registers in your brain quite well even from your peripheral vision. I'd put something bright on the pup and maybe a bell if in heavier cover. She seems like a great dog.
 
peterk123 said:
Can I drop a rabbit with #6 as well?
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Yes you can but I prefer #5 and an ic choke on bunnies or snowshoe hare when I'm hunting Maine just for those

4 5 6 shot are pretty interchangeable imo. Can you use #6 on squirrel....sure thing it'll kill em. but I find alot of pellets still in the meat using #6.....when I use #4 they penetrate more and I find most of the pellets fall onto my truck bed when I pull the skin off as most of the pellets go all the way thru and are stopped by the skin on the exit side. If your out for grouse and rabbit at the same time I'd load up 6 shot and an ic or mod for sure it'll cover both bases just fine.

If I'm targeting just squirrel in early fall I use full choke and #4.

This time of year if I'm going out for squirrel but know there are a some spots where I'm going that have rabbit cover I load up 6 shot and a mod choke to split the difference. Rabbits bust out of cover fast so a more open choke and more pellets is beneficial. Many times I've come back to the truck with 2 or 3 squirrels and one bunny doing this.
 
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I was able to find 6 for my wife's 20g. I could only pick up 5 for my gun. I think we will head out again today but we will hit the mountains today. There's lots of mountain grouse up there, if you can find them. Will be lots of hiking.
 
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These buggers are tough. So now in the mountains they appear to bed in the snow within thick pine trees. I miss the fall when they are just staring at me on a fire road 20 feet away and I can just pick them off with a 22. We kicked up a couple but it was very hard to track or see where they were landing.

It was a treat to get up there because usually by now there is too much snow to drive up. It hit 48 degrees at the house and it was only 35 up here. We got to hike another four miles today.
20231217_113231.jpg 20231217_120536.jpg

River had the most success. She caught a number of sticks throughout the hike.

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When I was 15 I was hunting in the woods with my Remington Ny-loc 66, .22 cal I passed an old shed foundation about 8 inches high I spotted of the birds head just peering over the foundation. I had no idea what it was, I shot and it disappeared. I spent nearly 45 minutes walking around a 10 x 10 square looking for the bird. I finally found them right where I shot them and I looked in that area for 15 minutes, shot right through the head. What a master of camouflage
 
Rat187 said:
When I was 15 I was hunting in the woods with my Remington Ny-loc 66, .22 cal I passed an old shed foundation about 8 inches high I spotted of the birds head just peering over the foundation. I had no idea what it was, I shot and it disappeared. I spent nearly 45 minutes walking around a 10 x 10 square looking for the bird. I finally found them right where I shot them and I looked in that area for 15 minutes, shot right through the head. What a master of camouflage
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They also like very dense cover. I lost one in Maine this fall because it dropped in a cluster of evergreens that were so dense I could only reach my arm into the stand of them. Our dog couldn't even get in there. Hopefully next season I'll do better.
 

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