Grouse

[Okanagan]

Sauteed in butter with kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper. 





I got a string going and killed these three in three shots within a minute.



Ran the string to six grouse in six consecutive shots and then missed one.  Ate campfire grouse for two nights and brought five home.  No deer.

You can see why most people road hunt in this country.  Roads to the horizon. Lots of grouse out there somewhere, and a very few deer.

[pitw]

Lack of critters ain't why they road hunt,  It's cause they can't sit on their [prospectors animal], listen to te radio ad ave heat that they road hunt.
Nice flock of grouse that looked real good in the pan.
I only has a few roughies around me.

[Okanagan]

Lack of critters ain't why they road hunt,  It's cause they can't sit on their [prospectors animal], listen to te radio ad ave heat that they road hunt.
Nice flock of grouse that looked real good in the pan.
I only has a few roughies around me.

Tru dat re road hunting.  Because they are there, the miles are sure tempting to drive, easy sitting with a heater going.  Kind of musing aloud here.   I work at finding a pocket with game or a migration route and then hunt it.  With tracking snow and so many miles of road now, I drive miles of road at night and then go back at daylight to hunt where the best tracks were.   Many places where I used to backpack hunt now have a road pushed near.  I don't know if it is cheating or not to use info I gathered by miles of hiking years ago to zero in on the same good spots that are now near a road.  I killed a buck at a good bedding spot on a ridge that used to be miles from a road and is now within rifle range... if you know where to look. 

I hiked two ridges in the past three days, would have gone much father if I'd had someone to pick me up on the other end.  On the second one, I got to thinking that if I killed a buck up there it was going to be bad (even if he fell off of the correct side), getting him down through deadfall and steep ground.  I hope to age gracefully, and I thought, "Old man, you are going to be in trouble if you kill a deer in this spot by yourself, and you should not hunt this kind of place any more." 

[nastygunz]

When I was a lad growing up in Vermont road hunting for ruffed grouse was part of our tradition or as we call them partridge. That was one way that a lot of the older folks could keep on hunting. Nowadays it is frowned upon by the authorities.

[pitw]

Old folks are exempt.  Young bucks ain't.

[Okanagan]

My bad.  The road hunt pic and comment is a distraction from the grouse, a second topic.  I get most grouse as incidentals while driving.  The grouse pick up gravel on the road.  I occasionally walk a special grouse side road, overgrown ones are best, and used to carry an air pistol in a fanny pack for shooting grouse while still hunting.   Ruffed are the best table fare in the woods and I wish they weighed 50 lbs.!

[FinsnFur]

 
That looked delicious!
Love the firepit

[Okanagan]

Thank you.  Ate it out of the pan and it WAS delicious! 

Re the fire pit:  Someone in the past week or so had made a fire ring for his campfire at the end of an old logging road.  With flat sided stones so handy, in a few minutes I built it into a semi-fireplace with the best cooking side pocket I've yet made.  Rake coals into the "vestibule" and the skillet fit perfectly and level.  It throws heat out the front.  This was right at the lower edge of snow level so heat was nice, though the fresh snow melted higher up the mountain the next morning.







Made some pan toast to use up the left over butter in the pan but forgot to take a pic till I was part way done eating the first piece.

[riverboss]

I am so jealous! It sounds  like a awesome adventure.

Sent from my Tank Xtreme 5.0 using Tapatalk

[coyote101]

Very cool  thanks for sharing. 

Pat