Want to try Grouse hunting

[RHarte]

Jim, I frequent your desired area grouse hunting with my Vizsla.  Its tough to find good numbers within 2 hours of BC.  Partridge Run WMA is an excellent starting point.  If you hunt up by the swamp you will do well.  Just know this is also a pheasant release site and can get busy.  

Once you hunt there you will begin to understand the cover you're looking for.   I suggest purchasing a subscription to Scout N' Hunt maps.  This will show you where in the state of NY all the cutting is going on.  It helps if you have OnX too.  Hunt an area, if it looks good or you have bird contacts, drop a pin.  My next step is research.  I find similar aged cuts on SnH and pin them on OnX for future reference.  Sometimes google maps can be used as well.  Obviously it is less detailed and sometimes the satellite imagery is old but it helps.  

Expect to walk a lot.  ALOT.  5 miles per bird is certainly no exaggeration.  Usually I mix in some of the pheasant release sites to help break up the day.  Most sites you will find pheasant, woodcock and MAYBE if you trudge far enough away from the road you will find some grouse.  

Dog work is something to consider.  This season will be my deciding year whether I want to shoot birds or improve my dog.  Grouse will not hold like subsidized quail/pheasant or woodcock.  We had over 30 contacts on grouse last year with none in the bag.  The dog will bump them.  Be ready.  

If you're anxious,  try Cranberry Mountain WMA.  You will find it much closer to BC.  There's a swamp up over the hill that holds woodcock.  Its also a pheasant release site.  

[Woodcock]

On 10/3/2022 at 7:14 PM, RHarte said:

There are no grouse at Cranberry Mountain WMA….. assuming that’s the one in Putnam County.  There are very few pockets of grouse in the lower region, certainly not huntable populations anyway.  It’s from the maturation of our forests.  

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Woodcock
Error

[airedale]

Have not hunted very much for Grouse on public land so I can not direct to any specific places. I can say that I can recognize good Grouse habitat when I see it and it is all about habitat that has good cover from varmints and food sources.

Old abandoned grownup farm land especially old scrub hillside apple orchards and bordering woods. Evergreen and Alder mixed forest with a lot of undergrowth along with a stream meandering through it makes it all the better. Briar-bramble patches and old logging roads.

Rabbit-Hare and Woodcock like the same terrain and many times will be a bonus.

Harleigh and myself with one she flushed out of some old abandoned farm land a few years ago.

Al

Edited December 5, 2022 by airedale

[hueyjazz]

I get grouse on my property.  Pretty sure it would be impossible to hunt them without a dog.  They pretty much wait for you to step on them and then pop up.  Half the time they fly right at you.  The DEC nursery program has a "Grouse Packet" of various trees and shrubs you can plant to attract grouse.

[Kmartinson]

On 12/5/2022 at 5:56 PM, hueyjazz said:

I get grouse on my property.  Pretty sure it would be impossible to hunt them without a dog.  They pretty much wait for you to step on them and then pop up.  Half the time they fly right at you.  The DEC nursery program has a "Grouse Packet" of various trees and shrubs you can plant to attract grouse.

That's what they all do

[RHarte]

On 12/5/2022 at 9:39 AM, Woodcock said:

 

That's why I said woodcock and pheasant! I don't know many grouse hunters who don't also hunt woodcock and vice versa.