Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Ruffed grouse

Anyone hunt the grouse? How do you hunt them? How do you cook them? Thanks.

They are usually around Aspen/Alders in Montana, not far from water. The best way to hunt them is with a good pointer. The best way to shoot them is on the ground. Of course you have all the tweed jacketed/knicker wearing hunters that would only shoot them on the wing, but I only shoot at them flying after they have busted once I started shooting at them on the ground. If you see a snowshoe rabbit while you are hunting, blast it too, it will sweeten the pot.

Ruffed Grouse are perhaps the best upland game bird for eating next is Blue Grouse. I like eating them, so I shoot them on the ground.

Once you have gotten a limit, which might take a week or two if you only shoot at flushed birds, the best way to fix them is simple:

Bone both breasts and thighs. Cut the breasts into Chicken McNugget sizes and then shake the pieces in a paper bag with some seasoned bread crumbs and a generous amount of freshly grated Parmesan Cheese.

Set a large frying pan at just over 300 degrees and melt generous amounts of butter, saut� the pieces with a quarter cup of freshly chopped garlic, covering the grouse and turning them often. Cook them only until done, no longer so the pieces don't dry out, then serve with a wild rice dish, like a Rice-A-Roni packet and you won't get a better meal short of Maine lobster...

With a name like Wabigoon you must know all about pa'tridges.

They're the best eating there is to come out of the bush. Most around here shoot them in the head with a 22 and a few guys I know use 410's and 7 1/2 shot. When I was a kid you could shoot 10 or 20 in an evening now you're lucky to get a half dozen in a good day.

I lost my ruffed grouse partner recently. She and I had some great times together.




I also like our high NV Big Blues...

My condolences, I truely love dogs, all dogs and am a total creampuff about them and any suffering that they might go through. Your lovely bonedigger would have been a joy to know and hunt with, I hope he is now hunting the fields and thickets of Paradise.

I also love hunting Ruffed and Blue Grouse and actually often use a drilling or O/U combo gun for my solo deer hunts so I can take the grouse I encounter. I love elk hunting first and then solo grouse-deer hunting, actually more than much of the famed "trophy" hunting we have in BC.

Beautiful dog! Sorry she's gone.. I truely love me some Grouse and Dumpling's..

Do you hunt Grouse in Cowlitz Co.?? It use to be loaded with them in the Silver Lake/Toutle area and up the Coweeman/Rose Valley area also. Both Ruff & Blue Grouse.

Wrap them in italian style ham and mozzarella cheese slices, then cook in the oven.

Ms. Scarlet lived for two things...to please me...and to work her heart out for me in the field. She was that "once in a man's lifetime" dog, and she was my constant companion for twelve very short years.

Here in NV we have mostly Blues, with a smattering of ruffies introduced in isolated habitat. We have good blue grouse hunting in the high mountains across central NV and good populations along the eastern Sierras. We hunt the blues from 7,000 to 10,000 feet.

In NW MT we have spruce, ruffed, and some blues. They transition as one gets higher with some spruce about everywhere. They can be good eating. Heck, I've never eaten a grouse of any kind I didn't like, from the sagey sagehen to the delicate ruffies.

I never shoot spruce grouse because I dont care for the taste and they are nearly tame. Our roughs are really warry and you will never shoot one on the ground. However, I have hunted them in NW Ontario and they are real dumb up there.
Wabigoon, is your user ID a referance to Wabigoon lake outside Dryden? If so I hunted grouse alot off the Gordon lake road just past V Bay.That place is infested with em.

I've taken grouse with 12 and 20 gauge shotguns, various centrefire rifles up to 300 Win Mag, 22s, and rocks!Blues, spruce and ruffed grouse all are available here, though not nearly in the abundance of 30 years ago (god, I'm becoming an old man!). I have an unsubstantiated theory that various chemicals/sprays used in the forest industry have been a major factor in this change. On Vancouver Island in the 70s and 80s you usually saw a few birds every day while deer hunting and carried a shotgun in the truck for any roadside opportunities. Since then, seeing a grouse warrants a mention at the end of the day when you meet up with your hunting partner. (I'm lucky, I have a great one)

I've done most of my grouse hunting in the UP( upper peninsula of Michigan) I have had some fantastic hunting over the years up there. I have hunted mostly behind my German Shorthair Pointer. After hunting behind her I care to never hunt any other way. I have just walked the old skidding roads without a dog and have knocked off a few young dummies just driving the two tracks but after hunting behind a good dog everything else is just a waste of time.
My favorite is a 12 ga. Fausti O/U followed up by my inherited Belgium Browning Auto 5 with 1 1/2 oz of 7 1/2 chill in a 2 3/4" Win AA hull. I usually have good luck in stands of poplar thats under 10yrs old or mixed upland cover of spruce and balsam along overgrown two tracks that have a little gravel on them still.
You might think a 12 ga with over an ounce of shot is much but like BWalker states these birds are cagey and if you get your dog on point for a split second before they flush your doing good and they usually pull out at a minimum of 30 yds out so having a decent payload for reach will help pull down birds at 40 yards or so which isn't all that uncommon. Many days my pointer has been just a retriever because the birds have been so spooky that as soon as she picks up a scent and starts looking "birdy" I'll have birds flush 40 or so yards out down a skidder trail. And thats why my O/U is a full over modified.

Having an Appalachian Mountain Ruff wait around for you to shoot it on the ground is rare and when it comes to clothing you look like a runway model in most of your pics compared to most Eastern Grouse hunters. At the end of a hard season a more tattered clothed group would be hard to find.

By the way, nice shirt in the picture, leather trim on the collar? Veeery dapper, I must admit.

Thanks for the recipe, I'll give it a go here shortly. If it tastes as good as it looks, I owe you one.

HBD Battue!

Im pretty sure Ive related this story to you, but like Shrapnel Ive hunted many a grouse in montana, and I had an uncle in PA. that was an ardent grouse hunter...
The last grouse I killed when he was alive was actually four grouse, all Ruffed, all with head shots from a Colt Diamondback .22
Told him about it and he took his little Chas Daly 20 gauge,and sat in the corner for days, catatonic...

Why thank you. Plan on celebrating here in an hour or so by emptying two flats of shotgun shells. Sun is out and a clear blue sky for now. Should be fun.


Anyway, just horsing around with Shrapnel a bit and you have to admit he usually is styling in his pics.

This Filson lasted about two years. Still has some life left, but I best have James my taylor sew on a few buttons before next season.

I always let them walk.They bring more joy to me watching the goofy buggers than eating them

This one is a tough spot.

You gotta' be real sneaky to ground sluice a ruffed Grouse. Rarely do I have a dog, as most of the grouse I get are when I am elk hunting and as Ingwe said, you can't shoot a grouse in the head with a .22 when they are flying. My clothes are just stuff I've picked up out of various camps and trucks parked at trailheads, while the previous owners were out hunting.

The recipe, by the way, is so simple and elegant, you can invite your tailor over for dinner after a brisk walk in the woods with a nice SXS and your ratty Fislon vest, and he will think you are one of the tweed jacketed types. No one has to know where the clothes come from, all that is important is that you look good...

That second pic reminds me of the time I decided to take a short cut and climb up a steep strip mine cut. When I reached the top and my head cleared a Grouse was in the same place as your pic.

He took flight and chit at the same time. Just missed my face in more ways than one.

Excellent, I'm rolling with laughter here. Even if you are a heathen basted when it comes to Grouse

I'm gone, check in with you boys down the road.