Posted in ENJOYING BOTH on Feb 5th, 2012
I came across this video the other day on Youtube. The clip is from a quail preserve in Tennessee. From what I can see, the place puts hunters into lots of birds. It also has some dogs that really know how to find those birds and retrieve them. But here’s what bothers me: The dogs are [...]
Posted in ENJOYING BOTH on Feb 3rd, 2012
Habitat loss and declining bird numbers — it’s a sad story that’s being played out across North America. It’s also a story that involves woodcock. Eahc year, as forests mature and housing developments expands, these birds loose more of their home turf. The Woodcock Task Force is fighting to stop this. Read more about [...]
Posted in ENJOYING BOTH on Jan 31st, 2012
Here’s a little video about how drought and habit loss is impacting bobwhite quail populations in Texas. Not too cheery. I hope it starts to rain. almost as much as I hope people stop ruining quail habitat.
Posted in ENJOYING BOTH on Jan 28th, 2012
I saw this on a great blog called Uplandbirdhunter.com. Check it out. I’m sure you could use the same technique to a grouse. OF course, you need to do something with those quail once they’re cleaned. You could even bring the ingredients along with you and do this in the field: Enjoy. www.dogsanddoubles.com
Posted in ENJOYING BOTH on Jan 18th, 2012
Here’s a quick little video that shows Ann Jandernoa of Northwind Enterprises explaining some things to look for when you’re trying to find grouse. Ann is a grouse wizard. Puck and I hunted with her in the fall of ’04 and she really knows her stuff. If you want to learn more about grouse, grouse [...]
Posted in ENJOYING BOTH on Jan 15th, 2012
I was doing a bit more research into winter time grouse foods when I came across this: Winter Food Habitats of Ruffed Grouse in Young Aspen Stands. This paper is based on finding from a 1972-1973 study of 10-15 year old clear cuts in Oneida County, Minnesota. The researchers found that the top ruffed grouse [...]
Posted in ENJOYING BOTH on Jan 14th, 2012
Check out this quick little video of some folks hunting for grouse and woodcock in Maine. It’s pretty well done. (FYI – turn you audio down before it gets going. The music is a bit much.) BTW: Do you think he popped that first grouse out of that pine tree?
Posted in ENJOYING BOTH on Jan 12th, 2012
I’ve always been told that grouse switch to Aspen buds as cold winter moves in and the ground freezes up. This string over at Upland Journal proves that that’s not the whole story. Some bird’s diets are a bit more diverse. The bird was shot in late December. Check out the content of it’s crop [...]
Posted in ENJOYING BOTH on Jan 10th, 2012
Back in the late 1960′s, Pennsylvania was the South Dakota of pheasant hunting. Sportsman harvested over million pheasants a season from this eastern state and in 1971 over 1.3 million of them were taken by Pennsylvania hunters. But by the mid 1990s these numbers had crashed and fewer than 255,000 pheasants were being killed a [...]
Posted in ENJOYING BOTH on Jan 3rd, 2012
Happy 2012. Well, another upland season has come to an end for me and Puck – our seventh season together. December was a good to us. We saw quite a few grouse each time we went out. Our last time out hunting was the day after Christmas. The weather was in the mid-30s and there was [...]
