From the Field: In Search of the Sweet Spot for Ruffed Grouse

For a brief window of time in the grouse woods, it’s nothing short of pure perfection

I nearly failed to notice that the steady stertor of Stellar’s panting and the rustling of underbrush had ceased. In my defense, I was distracted by the pestering of deer keds looking to find an easy meal in the fresh blood etched in my forearms by daggers of hawthorne. Their enthusiasm for flesh is a reminder that winter is coming, and no creature of the northern latitudes should dawdle at feeding time. 

Stellar, my shorthair, doesn’t need a bell in grouse cover. While he’s far from a freight train in the woods, he makes enough noise in his effort that I can easily keep tabs on his location when working close. It’s a decisively German trait that no proper English pointing dog would dare emulate, but as a locating beacon, it’s both reliable and utilitarian as long as I’m tuned in to its signal. 

One of these godforsaken keds has found its way into my eye (their favorite target), but I wipe it away as best as I can and persevere. I have to power through the visual haze and annoyance. The silence that has now taken hold in the woven maze of a hawthorne patch means he’s found a ruffed grouse. 

I’ve never hunted the Northwoods, but I feel a deep spirit of connection to the obsessive fraternity of men and women who chase The King with their double guns and setters each fall. Here, a half a continent away, the ruffed grouse still reigns supreme, even if it’s not a kingdom recognized by most of the local upland hunting community. 

We enjoy a long and variable forest grouse season spanning the last few days of August until the end of January in some of my home covers. It’s a generous window of wingshooting opportunity that’s a testament to the abundance of suitable habitat and lack of hunting pressure, aside from meat-craving road warriors and bored archery elk hunters. 

For the scant few of us that dedicate much of our upland efforts to ruffs, the long season gives us a window into how these native birds migrate, forage, and adapt from summer’s abundance to the biting winds of winter. 

In the early season, I’ve killed juvenile birds with their crops stuffed with grasshoppers and stubby blood feathers in their fans. In the dwindling light of late January, I’ve opened up mature drummers to find them loaded with fir needles–an obvious last resort on their winter menu–without an ounce of body fat left to sustain them until breeding season begins in March. 

Pardon the digression, but If I’m completely honest, once the adrenaline of the flush and shot have passed I’m left with equally sentient pangs of remorse for killing either of these vulnerable birds. Go ahead and judge me if you care to, but don’t doubt the adoration of this bird by those who pursue him. No one has ever gotten misty eyed over a dead pheasant. Those birds were brought here for killin’.

I’ve learned over the past 18 years in the western grouse woods that the seasons and the birds are forever in transition. The likelihood of finding them on any given hunt is intimately tied to a hunter’s ability to understand their biological needs at that particular moment and to actively seek out those resources. Reliably, that’s where they’ll be, whether it’s a jungle of tag alders, a fir stand, or an elk wallow. 

I doubt this is a uniquely western grouse hunter phenomenon, but there is a brief but poignant time each fall where grouse hunting reaches perfection. I call it the Sweet Spot for lack of a more romantic label, one that I’m sure exists in midwestern grouse hunting lore.

It usually occurs in late October or the first few days of November if we’re spared the rain. The aspen and cottonwoods are vivid yellow and the hawthorne paints the understory in strokes of dark reds. Frost has killed the bugs but the wind has not yet ripped the all bright foliage from the trees, only enough thinning to create a few helpful shooting lanes. Cold nights have pushed mature birds down from the mountains to feed on ripened berries and green upshoots, while the broods have broken up and filled every grousy looking nook with new tenants. 

For a few days or weeks, depending on the year, there are grouse everywhere. The young birds are fully plumed and the older birds are in regalia, and both of them seem uncharacteristically compliant for the intrusion of pointing dogs. 

It’s as glorious as it sounds if you’re a fan of chasing ruffs. You’ll have a hard time taking any other type of upland hunting seriously once you’ve experienced it. 

But today’s not that day. It’s buggy and warm, and the odds of finding cooperative prey in this jungle are slim at best. 

Bugs aside, this particular grouse hole is a hunter’s nightmare. Its branches are prickly and knitted, with no room to advance without a machete much less shoulder and swing a shotgun. Even though the Garmin has pegged Stellar at 17 ft from my location, I can’t find him. 

“For a few days or weeks, depending on the year, there are grouse everywhere. The young birds are fully plumed and the older birds are in regalia, and both of them seem uncharacteristically compliant for pointing dogs. ”

Another ked lands on my neck and begins its ascent to my scalp, but I allow him to continue on without consequence for now. I’ve grouse hunted long enough to know the bird will choose to flush precisely when I reach away to deal with the tingling distraction. 

I finally catch the shimmer of Stellar’s reflective collar among snowberry and expired paintbrush. This cover can swallow up a roan dog as effectively as it can camouflage its native residents, and the bright orange around his neck has saved me numerous times. 

I follow the trajectory of Stellar’s nose to my right and contemplate a plan. But ruffs rarely follow any script, and whatever strategy I hadn’t yet settled on is cut short in its development by the flush of wings behind us. I can only catch pieces through the hawthorne of a red phase bird exiting out the back door. I tell myself it was a hen and it’s best that it escaped unharmed. It’s a lie, a weakly buttressed coping mechanism I’ve developed for a sport with a remarkably low success rate. At least the ked is dead now.

Even though today’s not the Sweet Spot, it’s certainly an important chapter in this season’s grouse hunting adventure. Perfection is a perspective, after all – a state of mind created by comparing the quality of this moment to past challenges and misadventures. We’ll keep hunting until that day comes.