Grouse season in PA starts next month.

[Adam Helmer]

October is my favorite month and next month grouse season opens here in northcentral PA on the 18th. For the last two weeks and the next several, I am shooting trap weekly at my nearby gun club to "groove" my shotgun expertise (?). I have a 60-acre farm adjacent to 969 acres of nice hardwood conservation forest. My loyal hound, Nikki, is ready to go with me afield. Who else is going after grouse?

Adam

[buckdeer]

I wish I was. All the grouse are gone here in southern Ohio. It's so bad the state has lowered the limit to 1.

[atr]

Grouse season started here and next week I will be hunting them in the Okanogan forest. 20 ga #6 shot

[Rockindaddy]

Adam glad you have grouse! I am in SW Pennsylvania and there are no grouse! The West Nile Virus has practically eliminated them. I can remember when 25-30 flushes in a day. We could always get our limit! Going further north above Franklin, PA the grouse were thick!! But thanks to the mosquito that bites the bird and infects them with the WN virus; we have no birds.

[Shawlerbrook]

And you guys can now hunt on Sunday ! Same here in NY, either West Nile, Bird Flu, predators,etc. grouse numbers have plummeted.

[Jedman]

I haven’t seen a grouse in over 10 years in SE Ohio or in Northern MI while deer hunting or woods walking. I use to take hunting trips with friends to both areas just for grouse but you just don’t see them anymore.
Sadly it’s the same with quail, I use to find covey’s on just about any good hunting areas prior to the large blizzard in January of 1978. I seen 1 quail in my yard here in SE MI about 2 years ago and was thrilled to see it ! There are a few wild pheasants around my area but I don’t hunt them. I keep hoping they would make a comeback but there just isn’t enough good cover left plus the coyotes seem to have all small game numbers way down.
Jedman

[Adam Helmer]

Great responses and I share the concerns about the lack of grouse. West Nile Virus and avian predators have taken their toll. In 1990, PA had about a dozen eagles nesting pairs and now we have over 500! We have many redtail hawks and other avian predators and all are Federally Protected while they dine daily on all small game here.

I hunt with Nikki dog and we trek the lovely October woods. I see so few grouse, I rarely shoot. Nik wonders why and I tell her we just saw a rare event. I trek about with my lovely Sweet 16 to keep up the tradition and recall how good it used to be. In the old days farmers shot hawks that robbed their chicken flocks. Now any farmer suffering avain predation is fined or jailed for his farm protection. When will we EVER have enough avain predators? The tree huggers won out and all small game suffers. Amen.

Adam

[buckdeer]

Enjoy your well spent time. If you have a chance to go to the western side of the upper peninsula of Michigan I would highly recommend it we were getting 50 flushes a day without a dog. Rarely got a shot,very thick, but the experience of seeing grouse again was worth it