In general, and excluding road hunters,
Of 10 flushes, you will see clear enough to shoot four of them.
Of the four that you shoot at, a good shot will knock down two, but typically only one or none.
There’s an organization. I can’t say if it’s around anymore or not as it was paper-based, call The LODGH, the loyal order of dedicated, grouse hunters, and their historical information was very accurate.
People self reported, the newsletter, operator, collated, and analyzed the data, and then published results.
It had quite a following for the first 25 years I was shooting at grouse.
A person can argue about effectiveness pre-and post leaf drop, but taking grouse on the flush (as opposed to shooting them on the ground) takes a bit of doing.
In a big year, you could flush 150+ by Oct1, and see only 30% or less.
I’m not a big fan of shooting young of the year, which are often times hardly larger than robins. By October 1, they’ve grown a considerable amount and present a much more favorable target. No hopping up into trees for instance.
A person must be tolerant of other people using whatever legal means there are for shooting them.
That means road hunting, mechanical aids, skirmish line hunting and semi automatics.
You can extirpate grouse from a wood lot with a coordinated effort. And then post your pictures on the Internet to show your grouse killing promise.
In the past, I think I posted pictures of grouse broods drinking from puddles in the heat of September that I chose not to shoot at.
