Comments on: Blue Grouse Patterns http://www.covemountainkennels.com/blue-grouse-patterns/ Bird Dog Training in Idaho Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:38:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Pete http://www.covemountainkennels.com/blue-grouse-patterns/#comment-61 Pete Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:12:00 +0000 http://www.covemountainkennels.com/blue-grouse-patterns/#comment-61 Chris I think you're spot on with the grouse habitat description. Here in Northern New Mexico, they're already up above 9000' feet but there are still ample berries and bugs at that elevation to sustain them. it's also been really wet. The first covey of the season was sitting right at the top of a wildflower-and-berry laden steep meadow ridge that sloped from 9900 to 9700 feet or so. And they headed straight for the forest cover below. Although those shots were more like high-house from station 1 on the skeet range, I really recommend sporting clays as a tune-up for the grouse hunter. The Saturday prior I spent the morning on a 100-clay shoot and some of the stations were super grouse like. It's especially important to drill on targets like battues which flop over and fall rapidly forcing the shooter to pull the gun down on the swing and shoot below the bird. That's a counter-intuitive motion for most of us, but it's something those blues (er, "duskies") like to do all the time. Thanks for your post. Chris I think you’re spot on with the grouse habitat description. Here in Northern New Mexico, they’re already up above 9000′ feet but there are still ample berries and bugs at that elevation to sustain them. it’s also been really wet. The first covey of the season was sitting right at the top of a wildflower-and-berry laden steep meadow ridge that sloped from 9900 to 9700 feet or so. And they headed straight for the forest cover below.

Although those shots were more like high-house from station 1 on the skeet range, I really recommend sporting clays as a tune-up for the grouse hunter. The Saturday prior I spent the morning on a 100-clay shoot and some of the stations were super grouse like. It’s especially important to drill on targets like battues which flop over and fall rapidly forcing the shooter to pull the gun down on the swing and shoot below the bird. That’s a counter-intuitive motion for most of us, but it’s something those blues (er, “duskies”) like to do all the time.

Thanks for your post.

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