John W
Hunting Dusky Grouse. Grouse 1-Hunter 0
Sunday, November 12, 2023, 18:11

I went out this AM for the infamous blue or dusky grouse. I headed down the Loop Road which meanders SW out of Sinks Canyon through the Shoshoni NF. I stopped at the Blue Ridge Pass at 9500 feet. I walked uphill through the Ponderosa with the hopes of finding a snowshoe hare or dusky grouse.

There were signs all over the place. I was headed west according to my compass (you better know how to use one of those things in this place) and as I was just finishing a short video ,I spotted some tracks. I flushed a grouse. I knew it was a dusky because it was huge. I drew my Smith and Wesson Performance Victory with a Burris Fastfire 3 mounted on it. I put the red dot on the bird and squeezed the trigger. Boom. The bird flew off to another tree. I then fired three times and missed each time.

What gives? That gun is accurate, and I am not that bad of a shot.

I did an impromptu test.

Shooting at a stump, the gun was a good six inches off to the right?

I figure that either the gun was jostled around in my day pack or the elevation had a huge effect on it.

Now that I corrected the gun I went looking for dusky grouse.

Soon I heard a couple of human voices. It was a young couple.

I told the girl," Don't worry, you don't look like a dusky grouse."

The two laughed and she said she saw three of them about 100 yards down the trail. They were waddling in the snow. I thanked them for the information and headed down the trail.

I found tracks and circled around the snow covered peak but to no avail.

As a side note, what would you carry (no shotguns!) for such a hunt?