grouse guns

We are living in a golden age of the grouse woods. I no longer see the ruffed grouse of the past, but a culture of today – young and old, dedicated and committed to their calling and never so focused on saving the species.

I grew up in a long line of casual “partridge” hunters that never really considered the use of a dog. Grouse hunting was something you did when you scouted for whitetails. Swap the slug barrel off the old Remington 870 pump for a bird barrel, and those New Hampshire “chickens” were prime dinner. The older I became, the less ruffed grouse existed on the southern border of New Hampshire, and as my years went on as a suburban bowhunter, the ruffed grouse became a distant memory.