Grouse sightings

cotty16 · Jun 1, 2012

There is a thread right now about groundhog sightings. I've never really given it much thought in regard to groundhogs, but I have in regard to grouse I have. How many of you guys still see grouse frequently when your out in the woods?

I hardly ever see them anymore. I remember meeting friends after school to go hunt grouse and rabbit for a few hours before dark back in the early 90's and we would see a few, but now they seem pretty scarce. Heck, with all the time I spend in a tree, I don't even hear them drumming anymore. That used to be a common sound and one I enjoyed.

I'm to the point now where I don't hunt them and if I see one, I let it go.

brock ratcliff · Jun 1, 2012

The last one I saw was at least 5 years ago. To be fair, I haven't been in grouse country for the last couple of years. When I was a kid, we would see them every trip to the woods. We'd jump one, curse them for scaring us to death and move on. Hearing them drum in the spring was as common as turkey gobbles.

cotty16 · Jun 1, 2012

I used to hear them drumming in the fall too. I always wondered if they bred twice.

DJK Frank 16 · Jun 1, 2012

Honestly, I can remember flushing birds around here when Rabbit/Pheasant hunting 10-12 years ago, but I couldn't tell you what the hell they were. I just knew if it wasn't a rooster pheasant then I wasn't to raise my gun. But the only upland birds that I see around here are Pheasant now, and even those are VERY few and far between.

Schu72 · Jun 1, 2012

Belmont county used to have a good population back in the late 80's early 90's. We hunted them a bunch...but only ki9lled a few. Lots of fun though. Would always jump a bunch during deer drives TOO. Can't say the last time I saw one.

Jackalope · Jun 1, 2012

..

From what I have seen in Vinton County here are two steps that will get the grouse on a rebound..

Step 1. Kill most of the deer..
Step 2. Timber the shit out of everything.

Milo · Jun 1, 2012

grouse will never come back to ohio until you have to buy a tag for them.

bowhunter1023 · Jun 1, 2012

I am lucky to see one a year, usually on deer drives or recoveries. I still remember the first one I flushed/saw. I was 9 or so and we were on a squirrel hunt on my grandmothers farm and were walking back to the house on a logging road when we flushed it. You talk about coming out of your skin!!! I was 6-8' from it when it busted our from beneath an autumn olive bush. I've heard them drum on occasion, but it has been a while. I don't know of anyone that ever shoots them and IMO, we should not have a season on them. In regards to not just shooting things because you can, I feel grouse fall in to this category. IMO, the state is mismanaging this resources and it up to the true conversationalists in this state, us the hunters, to manage them with integrity. I love seeing grouse and I will never shoot one unless they get like turkeys or coyotes in my area. And then only a couple a season most likely, but it would make for an enjoyable hunt.

I feel the same about pheasants in my area, and maybe the entire state having no real knowledge of what they have to offer elsewhere. I have seen the grand total of one pheasant, a cock, at I'm not convinced it was not an escapee from someone's farmstead. It is a thing of joy to see one of those for me and shooting them is not an option unless I'm in SD or some place like that. The idea that we can kill something we don't have just does not sit well with me...

DJK Frank 16 · Jun 1, 2012

Wow I didn't even know we had a grouse season.

I haven't shot at a Pheasant in 8 or 9 years, and that was on a game club controlled hunt where they placed them and all that. Last time I seen one was a Rooster, a year or so ago crossing the road in front of me on my way deer hunting, made my night!

brock ratcliff · Jun 1, 2012

The DOW releases phesants on WA's. Funny thing is they only release roosters. The claim is that they will not survive in the wild, so why waste money on hens. I have heard that my entire life, but it doesn't make sense. The dang things were brought here from China...apparently the first to be released didn't know they couldn't survive. My buddy that is the local king of Phesants Forever says their decline is mostly due to changes in farming practices - there just isn't the habitat to support them. I have no idea what wiped out grouse. The claim is change in habitat also, but we are still cutting timber in this state, there is a revolving door of new growth habitat as there has always been, makes no sense to me. In truth, I think Milo has hit the nail on the head. Perhaps if we had to buy a "grouse stamp" to hunt them, they would be at least on the DOW radar.

hickslawns · Jun 1, 2012

Not sure I have ever seen a grouse in the wild. Pheasants? Nope. Although in the last week and a half I have had two neighbors tell me they have seen a couple. Probably the same bird. I hope to be able to see it eventually. Not sure where it came from, but like Jesse, I suspect someone let it go or it escaped from somewhere.

cotty16 · Jun 2, 2012

At my old house out the road I used to get a pheasant visit my backyard. I'd hear it cackling and it would be walking my fence line. Who knows where it came from.

Milo · Jun 2, 2012

We have a sever lack of cover for pheasants and way to many ditch tigers out on the prowl too. same with quail. now that the coyote is here also it is futile. the grouse have been wiped out by the lack of logging and the wild turkey.

Archertl · Jun 2, 2012

Logging is wide spread in southern ohio and I have not seen one since fall 2010. The turkey population hasnt changed since 2007 when I saw plently of them. I think coyotes and other causes are to blame.

brock ratcliff · Jun 3, 2012

Milo said:
We have a sever lack of cover for pheasants and way to many ditch tigers out on the prowl too. same with quail. now that the coyote is here also it is futile. the grouse have been wiped out by the lack of logging and the wild turkey.

Call me ignorant. How do turkeys affect grouse?

cotty16 · Jun 3, 2012

I was wondering that too. I was figuring on food competition.

Milo · Jun 3, 2012

brock ratcliff said:
Call me ignorant. How do turkeys affect grouse?

food

brock ratcliff · Jun 3, 2012

Ok. That may be the excuse being used, or theory being put forth, but I am not buying it. In the 80's Vinton County was over-run with turkeys. They were everywhere. Now, we kill more in Highland Co than they do in Vinton. I haven't hunted them down there for the last couple of years, but I assure you they are not there in the numbers they once were - not even close! There are still timber projects going on throughout the county, like always, but the deer, turkey, and grouse numbers are a fraction of what they once were. I grew up hunting on and around my grandfather's farm in Vinton Co... I wouldn't waste the gas to get there these days. Grouse hunting was fairly popular down there back then. I don't know anyone that hunts them anymore....they aren't there to hunt.

Jackalope · Jun 4, 2012

I don't think it's the turkeys as so much as the deer. And here's why. Three years ago mead logged a section of our timber. Up until that point it was all 40-45 year old hardwoods and a large tract of pines. I would hear grouse on occasion and see them in the greenbrier on hillsides. Well, about 2009 mead timbered a 200 acre section of hardwoods and didn't replant, thy just let it grow wild. It was around 2008 that the deer started to decline also. With the steady decline of the deer I have seen a steady increase in both turkey and grouse. It's hard to go in the woods now there without hearing one drum of flushing one. I would say if two guys had a dog they could both limit in a morning. It's for this reason I think the increase in deer populations had more to do with it than anything.

finelyshedded · Jun 4, 2012

We used to have grouse encounters all the time back in the 70's and 80's down in Morgan and Washington counties. It's been a steady decline ever since. We'd jump them near honeysuckle patches and greenbiar on benches and ridgetops. The guys are right about coming out of your skin during unsuspecting flushes TOO. My bro and I each heard the same grouse drum during the fall of a year back in the mid 90's. We would take turns hunting a great stand of ours and every morning around 9:30 or so this grouse would drum his ass off for a half hour to an hour. Till this day we both wish we would have looked for his drumming log which sounded less than 100 yards away.

Incidently, I've jumped a shitload of woodcock every year while shed hunting. Them bastards let you dang near step on em before flushing.

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