doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com No Grousmas in PA this year?

If Europeans ever got a taste of ruffed grouse, they would be trying to figure out a way to establish them, there. As far as I know, Hickory grouse aren't found outside of very northern Europe, mostly in areas of Russia, and don't compare as table fare to it's North American cousin.

I also wonder about the whys of lower grouse population, which, is affecting us here, too. There are many more predators than when I was a kid. It is also thought that some populations of different bird species will not survive West Nile. I hope the answer to the riddle is something we can change.

Best,
Ted

I hope for y'alls sake it is too, Ted. I hope it is not as complicated and hard to decipher as the decline in Bobwhite quail in the South. But, for all of man's increases in knowledge and abilities, some things seem to be imponderables. "We've" been trying to figure out the quail problem for several decades, now.

SRH

Probably just as well there are some things in Nature that we can't change, Stan. For all the good of science and technology, the injunction of our "dominion" over everything doesn't seem right to me.

Stan,
From what we heard from our Texas brothern, there wasn't a quail problem in those parts, this year. Or, last.

We here in the north have become used to the ten year cycle described to both rabbits and grouse. The rabbit cycle is right on schedule, but, something is amiss in the grouse cycle.

We should be riding the beginning of the upswing, right now.


We aren't.


Best,
Ted

I hate to read about the ruffed grouse decline. I've outlived my beloved bobwhite quail hunting and now it seems my bucket list ruffie is gone as well. I wish I'd have just shot one to put on the wall...Geo

Ruffed Grouse aren't gone if the habitat is right, George. Indeed, they are down right now, but not gone....at least in MN, MI and WI. They will come back, we just have to weather the storm, whether it be West Nile virus, or what have you.

What Buzz said. You will have to put in more leg work than we did in the past, but, there are some out there.

Has anyone hunted the Himalayan Snowcocks that were transplanted to the High Sierras?

That sounds like a bucket list bird.


Best,
Ted

They have seen signs of a decline in parts of Texas, Ted, but the biggest factor for great quail populations there is, and always has been, rainfall. I should have said the Southeast when I said the South.

SRH

This is almost correct. It is laughable for the Pa. Game Commission to say that they would have to give bikers, hikers, and horse riders a say in game lands management if they charged them a license fee for using State Game Lands.

Why would anyone think they would give those users a say when they don't give the hunters who they are supposed to serve a say. The Pa. Game Commission answers to no one but the Governor, who frequently is an anti-gun and anti-hunting Democrat. When hunters and The Unified Sportsmen of Pa. tried to sue them over their disastrous deer management issue, they were able to convince a judge that the hunters who paid the bills "had no legal standing to sue them." Now they get tons of money from logging, mineral extraction, and enormous revenues from the Marcellus Shale gas and oil fracking royalties and leases. In spite of all that, they still find creative ways to add more and more special licenses and license fee increases as game numbers and hunting opportunities decrease.

The only thing that got them to reverse a bit of their program to exterminate the deer was a great number of death threats which caused Deer Management Biologist Dr. Gary Alt to flee the state and go into seclusion.

He's still is in seclusion from what I hear under the Federal Protection Program. He ever shows his face in Pennsylvania again he's going to need a lot more than federal protection.

I agreed with Jagermeister also Keith about the increase in predators and raptors until he started on that bizarre rant about house cats.