16ga.com ~ View topic - What is your best piece of advise to a new Grouse hunter?

Joined: 29 Nov 2018 Posts: 87 Location: Oklahoma

Learn to love the woods where grouse live and the friendship of a good dog.
Learn to appreciate simple things like the smell of molding leaves, old apples and grapes--the way the sunlight filters to the forest floor and the ears of your dog.
Learn to love to share these things with a friend of like mind and the smell and feel of a mud stained dog in the gloaming after a day afield.

If you have these things, then the rest will be what goes along.

Joined: 08 Dec 2016 Posts: 169 Location: Michigan

Joined: 08 Dec 2016 Posts: 169 Location: Michigan

Oh yeah - and my other piece of advice - don't save money on your footwear selection or you can be in for a long miserable day, (or an abbreviated one).

Favorite saying I have taken to repeating is "Legs kill grouse"

Joined: 05 Nov 2016 Posts: 189 Location: Montana

Advice?
Learn from the old guys, they know their shit.
Don't listen to old guys, they are full of shit.
Figure out where the average of the above two lies.
Very Happy

….Just like bird dog pups - exposure, exposure, exposure.
and,
….Just like a stick vs. an automatic: learn on a double trigger...……………….

Joined: 05 Nov 2016 Posts: 189 Location: Montana

Gentlemen,

Some additional thoughts.

Never go in the woods without a Compass, know how to use it.

One of the safety practices some of the old timers use, is to announce at the vehicle that their gun is loaded, while initially loading it. In my Grandfather era this was standard practice in our mountains, for some reason the tradition has started to fade away.

One of the other practices he enforced was to never stack a loaded gun against a tree, for any reason. Dogs have a tendency to bump against them.

One of my big rules as a gun dog trainer/Grouse hunter is to never give another mans dog orders/commands while you are hunting, leave the owner handle his own dog, unless it's an emergency situation.

If you have somebody hunting with you make sure he understands that a gun dog from time to time will brush up against him, this can be a dangerous situation if the hunter is not accustom to this friendly event from a gun dog. People un-accustom to this can actually be knocked down, with a loaded gun in their hands.

When a stranger is hunting close to you and your partner, always make sure your hunting partner knows the stranger is in the area. When approaching another hunter it's a good idea to break the Breach on your double gun.

There are many things to learn as a Grouse hunter, the more you and your partner hunt together the more you understand each others ways. Mentors pass education and skills down as people learn to Grouse hunt, a mentor can be a big factor in a Grouse hunters life.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

Joined: 22 Jan 2015 Posts: 345

Thanks fellas, your advise comes across as very sound and thought provoking. Some of it would seem "common sense" others very insightful. All of it golden.

Pronghornsouth,

Actually he is being serious, especially on a snow covered mountain side, knowing when and how to fall with a loaded gun in your hands ends up being very important. Sooner or later every Grouse hunter takes a spill, learning how to do a controlled fall to safe guard both yourself, your partner and your loaded gun is actually important knowledge.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

Joined: 12 Sep 2010 Posts: 1973 Location: Maine

I cannot tell you how many times over the last near-40 years I have uttered silent prayers of thanks for the blackhats who ran ground week at Airborne School, where that entire week is devoted to doing pushups and learning to fall. Front, back, left side, right side, quartering - you name it. One foot off the ground, 4 feet off the ground, moving. Every different way to fall. When to fight it, when not. When to keep your feet under you, when to just flop. I can't tell you how many broken bones and serious injuries I've avoided, the training at Mother Benning's Home for Wayward Youth having imprinted into my brain what is now an instinctual knowing how to fall in such a way I don't get hurt, and my gun (or bamboo fly rod) remains undamaged.

My parents thought I was nuts for doing it. The savings in medical bills alone made it worthwhile.

Falling down is easy. Getting up unhurt, not necessarily so.

I always utter a couple silent prayers before tossing the shells into my gun. One for the game. One for a dear friend, fellow Boy Scout and hunter, a far better outdoorsman than I, who was run down and killed by a drunk at 19 and never got to enjoy the hunts and fishing I get now. One for the blackhats as I'm getting up from a tumble.

Dave in Maine,

I attended that military jump school also, I have thanked them many times in my prayers also.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

Pronghornsouth,

I thought you were just messing around, however many people are unaware that falling with a loaded gun is a learned operation, and I wanted to make them aware of that fact.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man