The types of locations shown above were the most productive this year for our late season success. Most birds where flushed out of trees because tons of birds were settled in their snow roosts, practically having to step on the roosted birds accidentilly to flush them. But the birds in the trees were predictable on some level, mostly borderline mature hemlocks with a nearby food supply of either aspen or alder. Walking slow and keeping it quiet surely allowed for more kills. It is very difficult to shoot a grouse that flushes from a mature conifer; they are already in the canopy and surrounded by limbs and there is no real opportunity to get a kill shot most of the time. Capitalizing on the ground flushes is key, and strategically chasing down birds that flush out of trees to make a kill shot later is also key. Two or three extra birds can often make a trip totally worth the grunt, and also has a tendency to separate the men from the boys.
