Apparently, Larry doesn't know that grouse still inhabit the woodlands after it snows. They don't hibernate and they still must feed. That sort of thing can happen if you do much of your hunting and shooting with a keyboard instead of a gun. I always enjoyed our late grouse season, and mostly hunted grouse in January, after our flintlock deer season closed or after I shot a deer. For sure, all of the leaves are down, and seeing the bird is a lot easier with the snowy background.
I didn't get out as much as I normally do in the regular season last fall due to work, but numbers were definitely way down. Then, during deer season I am often presented with flushes so straightaway that I often think I could kill the bird with my flintlock rifle. But I didn't see a single grouse during our regular rifle or our flintlock deer seasons. For several years, I've noticed a lot of piles of feathers where I assumed a hawk or coyote took a grouse. But perhaps it was due to some animal feeding on a bird that died from disease. I really hate to see it so bad since our pheasant hunting is pretty much limited to put and take of stocked birds on State Gamelands. Because of the cancellation of the late grouse season, I didn't make the usual trip to my buddy's camp in Potter County in January. He's about 3 miles from the Dark Skies area at Cherry Springs State Park which is spectacular on a clear moonless night. He reported that grouse numbers were very low there too.
