I hunted a spot that I found last year. It held a couple flocks of grouse then, and the gunning was good enough. But this year it was empty, and I really wanted to get Xena her first bird of the year.
We tried a spot lower on the mountain that looked like grouse habitat, but produced no birds the year before. As soon as I crossed the fence on the closed, old logging road, a grouse flushed behind me. Luckily for me, not him, the bird flew across an opening, and I was able to recover from the surprise and knock him down. Even though Xena had run right past the bird in her excitement to get out of the truck, she did retrieve him.
That was the only bird we found all day, but it was just the icing on the cake. Temperatures were in the 40s, the aspen trees were surreal in their colors, and fall was officially here. My favorite time of the year.
