Fellers. What kind of grouse is this? I believe Spruce or blue. Shot in the Gravellys SW Montana at at 7400ft

High altitude blue grouse, the best fall has to offer…

Those Big Game in Montana?

Looking good! Archery elk and deer almost turned into a grouse hunt, but we left the area soon after and didn’t find any more at the next place. We flushed another grouse nearby the next morning but didn’t get a great look at it

I'll bite, what kind of shotgun is that? Looks like a Stevens but don't recognize the hammer.

It is a Burgess, wrist slide action shotgun made in the 1890's by Andrew Burgess. A prolific gun inventor, second only to John Browning, with hundreds of patents, which some are still in use today. You can see the triggergroup slides backward to work the action. A very simple and effective shotgun action...

Thats a new one to me. If you stay away from the riff-raff on here you can sometimes learn something.

Initially, my comment was going to be, “Hunting birds with a rifle is a no-no in Texas.”
One of my favorite motto's is, “Not all things are as they appear to be.”
So, cut me a big ole slice of Humble Pie. New one to me too. Guess I should pay attention to the details.

"They" have decided there are two species formerly known as blue grouse. The ones you show are 'dusky grouse" while our SE AK birds are "sooty grouse."

Just an FYI.

Around here the spruce grouse and blue grouse hang out in the same locations or habitat. Those spruce grouse are smaller and have an red eyeliner on top eyelid that stands out. They're also smaller and spruce grouse meat is very very dark in comparison to other grouse.

Absolutely no experience with Montana grouse. But it looks like a sharp-tail to me.

Turkey?

Back in the years before children and right after we were married my wife and I did a lot of bird hunting. One day I got multiple “grand slams” with blue, spruce and ruffed grouse….a rooster pheasant, several Huns, several Chuckar, 2 California quail and a a Drake mallard. I think I killed at least 1 bird from every category except Turkey. I cooked everything 1 day and we had a side by side comparison of the various game birds available here.

I think it was back around 2008 when I was moose hunting outside of Delta Junction. We’d spend some afternoons hunting hare and grouse for fun and food. That year was an explosion of grouse and hare numbers with a crazy amount of both everywhere….I’d never seen anything approaching those numbers. Coincidentally on that trip I saw a half dozen lynx in the course of a week, since the hare numbers were high so too were the Lynx. 👍🏼

interesting...what do the undersides of the birds look like?

Sitka;
Good afternoon to you sir, I trust that you and your fine family are all having a decent day and are well.

Thanks for the chuckle this afternoon, as I was about to post something similar but yet again had to look up what we're supposed to have here.

As you know, I've taught the BC Hunter Safety Course for 34 odd years and somewhere a few years back, how many I can't begin to guess now Sitka, low and behold the new manual has two kinds of Blue Grouse!!!

Now being entirely honest, I was still getting over the fact they'd finally added turkeys to the manual after years of us assuring them there were in fact turkeys here and that the MOE had even put in a hunting season.

Oh and there used to be a question regarding whether there were Grizzly on Vancouver Island or not and the answer back when was no, but apparently some grizzly took that as a challenge and at latest count the MOE says there's somewhere north of a couple dozen now.

Anyways all that to say that "they" say our Blues here in the southern Interior of BC are "Dusky" and some magic line west of us they turn into "Sooty".

If I was guessing, I'd guess about Hope, BC where they filmed the first Rambo movie back in the dinosaur days. That's about where the mulies become blacktails so that's why the guess, but again it's only my guess.

All the best and thanks for making me look a few things up and the chuckle.

Dwayne

100% correct-
The breast feather plumage ,head plumage & tail feathers tell the correct tale.

huntinaz;
Good afternoon to you sir, I trust all is as it should be in your world today.

As has been established that's what we'd call a Blue Grouse here in BC.

They're typically the biggest grouse we've got down in the southern mountains, but going off of foggy old guy memory, I want to say a big male Blue would seesaw pretty well with the biggest Sharptail I ever killed in Saskatchewan.

Our eldest daughter shot one of the biggest male Blues I've ever seen and we really should have put that beast on a scale. It looked the size of a rotisserie chicken that one sees in the grocery store.

It was not however, as I recall, as tender as a rotisserie chicken.

Blues have darker colored meat than a Ruffer but not quite as dark as a Spruce, though young early season Spruce flesh will be pretty close in color, texture and flavor in our experience.

When our girls first started hunting they brought as many grouse home as they could, all taken with head or neck shots with a Brno No 5 .22 which gave them great rifle practice.

Later season Blues and Spruce will start eating pine needles and the meat gets darker and takes on more of a camphorous sort of flavor.

When mating season is on the males have this strange low "Whoop" sort of sound that reminds me of a big diesel trying to start on a cold morning with not quite enough battery to crank it fast.



Hope that was useful and made sense.

All the best and good luck on your season.

Dwayne

You can kind of see the bellies on these…

I was elk hunting a few years back and a grouse hopped up on a log about 40 yds away, just sat up there. I knocked my bird arrow with a Judo point and let it fly. I center punched the grouse and it disappeared in a cloud of feathers on the opposite side of the log. I could see a commotion and my arrow flopping around. That grouse flopped up onto it’s feet, and took off catching the wind and sailing down the mountain through the timber. My arrow was sticking halfway out both sides of the bird. Never found it. There was a quarter-sized chunk of meat on the other side of the log that the Judo ripped out of that grouse.

Shrap, How do you do that? I have never seen one that close with head still attached.

Mine were all guillotined with a Win 670 in 30-06 and a 165 gr BT. Nothing eats better!

Timbermaster;
Good afternoon, thanks for the wonderful hunting story.

Since you've officially opened the "how tough can Blue Grouse be" stories and by the way I totally get that happening to you, I'll share our strangest.

In the late '80's we used to wander up onto a chunk of mountain that had no roads, so other than the rancher checking on his range cattle a buddy and I were the only two crazy enough to go there. I'll note that we were both much younger, fitter and indeed a bit touched to go some places we ended up, but what wonderful memories we've got because we did.

Anyways we used to bump into so many big flocks of Blues we decided to drag a .22 along with us. I can't say which one went along, we both had a few so likely the lightest one since we Canucks cannot be trusted with handguns afield.

We were sneaking across a bit of a Sagebrush opening when we saw a good sized flock spread out all around. Buddy took careful aim while I watched with my binos and at the shot, the head dropped onto it's breast indicating a perfect neck shot to me.

However as we were walking the 35 odd yards to pick it up, it began to flap it's wings furiously, with the head still hanging down loosely. It rather sort of "helicoptered" up and then pitched out over a fairly significant canyon wall we'd been skirting, finally dropping out of sight about 100yds into the middle of the tree filled canyon.

For sure we were disappointed in the loss of the meal, but nonetheless an illustration of how determined some things are to live perhaps?

All the best, thanks again and good hunting.

Dwayne

Sorry Dan and Buckstopper, but they birds pictured are dusky grouse. The wing primaries are black with white spots on sharptails. The primaries on sooty and dusky grouse are solid color with a light colored edge... exactly as the pictured birds. Also the tail feathers are wide and fan-like on these birds, not pointy like a sharpie.

For fly tying I have examples of almost all US gamebirds and spend a lot of time looking for very specific feathers.

A sharpie headed down out of a tree (without the arrow, of course) is about the fastest bird I have ever missed. Many times I have watched people try to hit one after shooting one sitting and failing to even get a shot at the second. And they are tough birds!

They did similar to us on black rockfish many years ago and we now have dusky and black rockfish...

Always trying to make it tough on old guys...

The fastest sharptail I ever saw was one I shot out of a pine tree. It only bounced once after it hit the ground and a blue duck hawk hit that thing in the air on the bounce. That’s the last I saw the hawk and the sharptail.

I agree with Art. I doubt sharptail go to 7400 feet, and..... they have "hairy" feet IIRC - I might not- it's been awhile..

I grew up in central ND, where all we had were sharptail. I've seen exactly one in the Fairbanks area.

I usually see 2-3 sharptail a year north of Fairbanks but they seem pretty spooky and rarely give me a shot. I have killed a few though.

To the OP, that it most definitely, 100% a blue grouse (or Dusky if a guy wants to be with the times). Classic dry land blue habitat in the background too.

Bird on the left is a Sharptail from Fairbanks area. Their feather patterns are a bit different than the sharptail n Montana, but not much.



These are classic blues from Montana, exactly what the OP has:

And fewer than 8,000 were made. I have one of the short-barrel, fold-up models (intended for concealed carry?)

And fewer than 8,000 were made. I have one of the short-barrel, fold-up models (intended for concealed carry?)[/quote]




Like this…

Like this…






[/quote]

Like that, but yours is in much better condition than mine which, if not rode hard and put up wet, shows its age.

I enjoy bird watching and when I lived in Roseburg Oregon a couple years ago I was up in the mountains west of town many times for walks and bird watching. I kept hearing that low booming noise that Sooty Grouse make and would try and try to see one. It was fun and frustrating at the same time. Finally one day I was driving home and saw a female with chicks along the road and stopped and got some photos. I heard a male hooting up the hill and hiked up there and finally saw my 1st male Sooty Grouse. It was way up in a tree. I got a photo and video. One of my most prized photos of a bird.

Does it take a bit of practice to not "slam-fire" the Burgess? Or does the trigger need to be released to be re-set?

Whatever they’re called, I don’t appreciate it when they blast off from under my horse’s nose….😳

Yep, I have been startled many times by grouse. They can practically stop your heart.