Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire In search of Virginia grouse

That makes decent enough sense, they eat a lot of similar food. I know the turkeys out by my Dad's place in Fauqier are having a great year, may have just picked a rough year to start grouse hunting.

I can tell you for a fact that most Virginia bear hunters don't give a damn about ruffed grouse. There may be some guys toting shotguns and they may shoot a few, but they aren't influencing the population. Many of them carry pistols or small carbines to dispatch the bears once they are treed. Not the greatest weapons to bring down grouse.

Grouse population a cyclic and mostly dependent and influenced by weather, predator populations and disease as previously stated

Turkey numbers are definitely down. I’ll be surprised if bear numbers aren’t also. I was told they’d put down 55-60 bears with mange this year. We haven’t seen any all summer or fall and always see a lot at our place.

Grouse have been down in the Eastern States for decades. In the 80s we used to have such a good population, we could hunt them without a dog and just walk slowly in the right places and get 3 or 4 good jumps with no problem. Now, if I see or hear one, it is unusual. The scientists really don't have an answer.

ditto...also bunches in botetourt co but most are on private land.

So I tried my luck out at G R Thompson yesterday and I found just about everything other than grouse. Bumped 2 deer (one was a decent looking buck), flushed an entire flock of turkeys, found a bunch of black bear scat, and managed to bag a squirrel! I guess that technically counts as my first successful hunt lol (picture seems to be large to attach, if I figure out how to do it I'll post it later). Unfortunately no grouse, but there is certainly habitat for them. No laurels that I saw but tons of briars, thick underbrush, and tons of berries. I even found some old clear cuts & thick growth around streams that I was hoping may yield some woodcock but failed to find any avian life outside of tons of song birds and woodpeckers.

Probably gonna go there again for the next two or three weeks to familiarize myself with the area a bit ahead of the 2 day Thanksgiving fall turkey opening & one of the two days you can take a buck on G R Thompson. After that I'll probably go back to digging around the rest of Virginia, still lots of time to find a grouse.

Edges

Minor update, continued ventures to Thompson have continued to show everything other than grouse. Flushed more turkeys and seen plenty of deer & squirrels, even found a spot with decent dove traffic and Canada goose seem fond of the lake in spite of the low water level. Other hunters also concur that grouse, if there, are few in number. Woodcock have also yet to be located by me but at this point any migratory ones have moved on and odds of me finding one without a dog are slim. I have one more place to look though: The Davenport Tract of Thompson WMA. Reading through the DWR page on Thompson it consists largely of an old orchard which & some edge habitat, which sounds like it may hold grouse. My hopes aren't high, but at the moment I don't have the time to travel further.

Once I do get time I will be headed out towards Goshen/Little North Mountain WMA. A forum member reached out to me who's spent a lot of time in the Virginia mountains and gave me a few points for where grouse like to be both on WMAs & in the National Forests. Once I get the time to head out there I'll be sure to let you guys know what happens.

My turkey hunting & deer hunting ventures at Thompson have yet to bear fruit, but that's been because I've yet to get a clear & clean shot given to me. Seen plenty of deer and turkeys, hopefully if I keep marching through the woods I'll find something I can outsmart! Lately even the squirrels have been getting the better of me haha

AAAOA,

did you get in touch with this guy yet? An offer to try to get together and hunt with his dog sounds pretty nice to me. If I lived near him I'd be contacting him myself!

I haven't yet, I actually forgot about it so thank you for reminding me. At the moment I'm being about as stubborn as a mule about finding a grouse on my own for really no good reason. I should definitely reach out, might just need to tumble down another mountain or two to convince myself it's a good idea lol

Well, the fella knows how to catch catfish, as evidenced by his pics in another thread. He may just be able to put you on a grouse.

I hunt by myself often, so understand your line of thinking. But, I'm quick to take up an offer of help at times when what I've been doing isn't working.

Good luck in your pursuits.

Just go up to W MD for grouse. Numbers are better there than in VA and drive is a bit shorter. A bit more money for NR license but if serious worth it and can pick up a squirrels . Grouse numbers in Va are way down. If woodcock migration is timed right can pick up an easy limit. If unfamiliar with wood cock watch a few videos to ID. To be honest the woodcock hunting is better now than grouse.

. Look for transition zones.

https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/publiclands/wmawestern.aspx

Grouse numbers in Va are nothing like what they use to be. Several factors contributing to that; older forest growth, predators. I hunt southwestern part of Va, there are a few but you really have to walk for them. I have two dogs; Llwellen setters, you can still flush a few walking, but you defiantly have to put in the miles.

If you can find some private land that was timbered anywhere from 10 to 20 years ago, you might be able to move a bird or two...the National forests just haven’t been managed well for grouse, too much old timber, not enough undergrowth. That being said, every once in awhile I’ll get one airborne from a laurel thicket on national forest, but I mostly stay to old mining benches that have grown up over about a twenty year time frame.

Most of the far southwest Virginia counties will have a few birds in the right places. Same goes for far southern WVA counties. It’s all about finding the right place, look for laurel thickets, saw briars, grapevines with oaks growing in and close by. Some days I walk and walk and flush nothing, others I’ll get one or two up, I’ve even hit a few coveys over the years where as many as five to eight birds flushed close together. As mentioned grouse population goes in cycles.

There’s plenty of nuts on the ground down here this year, so not only will that help this season, but next as well. My male setter got on a bird today, flushed out in heavy cover, one shot from my 16ga and it was down. When I cleaned it, it had acrons and green leaves, which looked like some sorta wild mint leaf in its craw.

There are still a few around, just have to walk a lot to find them

Totally different area out here but not from another planet either. ..

By far the biggest driver to ruffed grouse numbers here is spring weather. If its a cold damp spring; May and June, mortality rate on the chicks will be really high as they nest on the ground and are exposed to the elements and don't do well wet and cold. If its warm and mainly dry spring most of the chicks will flourish. Their common predators here would be cougars bob cats and coyotes so their numbers have something to say about grouse numbers, but no where near what the weather dictates in the spring.

Best grouse hunting I find around here is in Oct. it seems. There's an area I like all along a west facing ridge that runs for 50 miles north south. About 3 in the afternoon till dusk on a nice day in direct sun light they'll be out in the open sunning them selves and picking grit off of old logging roads. If its a straight evergreen forest, not so much but if there's quite a bit of hardwood in the stand there'll be chickens it seems. Creeks can be very good too and walking along them real slowly can be productive. They like to get grit out the creek too and being a wetter there'll be lots of shrub's flowers and berries and forbes to eat.

There were a lot of grouse around when I was a kid. They have disappeared here and Indiana has closed the season. I’m in the woods an awful lot in the spring turkey hunting, mushroom hunting and fishing on the local creeks and I haven’t heard a grouse drum in probably 7 or 8 years.
It is odd since around 2500 acres have been timbered anywhere from a half mile to two miles of me in the last ten years. The old people pass away and the kids timber the place then sell it. Probably more grouse habitat now than at anytime in the last 80 years but no grouse.
I think the buffalo gnats have something to do with it. They usually show up for a few days in May and they are terrible. I have had them kill several baby chickens over the years. It only stands to reason that the little grouse chicks would be susceptible if they are hatched at that time.
I listened to a podcast on ruffed grouse and they talked about West Nile and that makes as much sense as anything. Something is killing them and I don’t believe it has much to do with their 10 year cycle.
Just the other day I was telling my boys about turkey hunting and hearing a “John Deere tractor”. I really hate losing them. I really liked having them around.

I live in the mountains of NE WV and I to have experienced the disappearance of the ruffed grouse. I’ve hunted them for 45 years and have seen the steady decline in numbers. The mismanagement of NF properties is an obvious negative as well as the cold wet springs during nesting season. Mast failures seem to be more common now. It seems the real problem with decreasing numbers and outright disappearance in some areas is the West Nile Virus. I hunt with a gentleman who consults with the PA game commission/ Penn State U and is involved with a study involving the virus Impact on grouse and turkey poults. Not sure of the exact study. The virus is 100% fatal on grouse poults and even has an impact on young turkeys, but not to the degree of the grouse. It appears to be altitude dependent meaning the grouse of the higher elevations are less prone to mosquito numbers and bites. As I get more info I’ll post but the outlook for the ruffed grouse in the central Appalachia appears grim.

Grew up and lived in Vermont most of my life, and go back each November for Deer season. 20 years ago and prior, it was common to flush a half dozen grouse in a days deer hunt. In the last 2 years, which represents about 30 days in the field and many miles, I have yet to see or bump a grouse. I know they are cyclical, but have to wonder if the increase in Coyote and Fischer cat population have had a huge effect on the grouse population. Not sure what else to attribute to.

https://youtu.be/fKf8TFyHmdc

There are a few videos out regarding the game commission studies on the effects of West Nile virus. This link is the longer one.