9/2/04

Opening Day + 1 - Pilots Peak

Member Details

Shells:

Federal 12 gauge, 1 oz and a quarter, 7 ½ shot

Area Hunted:

Pilot Peak, slope west of the Look out tower.

Directions:

Take Hwy 21 north of Idaho City. At Mores Summit turn left, the road is marked and the Lookout is about 4 miles up. There is a large pull-off to the right with a Forest Service Outdoor restroom.

Hiking Rating:

The hike is moderate if you park up top and just side hill down. The hills are steep but with numerous logging trails getting around is fairly easy.

Birds:

Blue Grouse. There may be ruffs in the ravines but their numbers are probably not substantial and hiking down to them would be a more strenuous hike then after the blues.

After working a little more than half-a-day, which is stressful during the beginning of the season, I made a run to the mountaintops to chase some blue grouse. I’ve hunted the area a few times before and even though it’s a weekday I’m a little anxious driving in hoping to not see any cars parked in the area I want to hit. Sigh of relief; no one else is around. I enjoy sharing information with people about where to hunt, but sometimes, I want to be the only one running the hill.

Blue grouse are one of my favorite birds for table fare. They are large birds (1.5-3lbs), so you can easily get enough meat off of the breast to feed two people and have a few tidbits from the legs. Plus, I like darker meat and feel like the breast meat from a blue has a much richer flavor than chukar for instance. Having said that, part of the reason I really wanted to be alone on the hill was to fill the game bag! It is a pretty nice feeling walking off a mountain side with the weight of 4 blue grouse pulling the back of your hunting vest to the ground.

Around Pilot’s Peak there are definitely places to focus your time on. As with most blue grouse hunting, start with a spring and just work the area. I personally like to walk western facing slopes and parallel the ridgeline. I tend to start up high and work in long switchbacks back and forth downhill. I will always choose to approach a bird from above and this applies to any type of game bird. At my favorite area at Pilot’s Peak I will walk 100 or so yards below the ridgeline for about a mile, then I will drop halfway between that line and the road I parallel and work my way back.

I’m not sure what it is about blue grouse but I have not seen many dogs point them. In fact, on several occasions I have come across grouse crouched in the open not 20 yards from where a dog has just busted through. Having walked up to enough birds just holding waiting for the danger to pass I have learned to walk pretty slowly when hunting the blue bomber. Being focused is always important when bird hunting, but with blues the focus should include a constant 360-degree scanning of your surroundings. Few game birds will hold as tight as blues and let you walk up to them or even past them. This characteristic along with other seemingly un-worried behavior earns this grouse, and the spruce grouse, the nickname of “Fools Hen”.

On this hunt my pup is having a grand time searching every square inch of the mountainside. Even with this effort she only finds one bird throughout the entire afternoon, which I take after in lands on a limb. I on the other hand, and I believe because of my slow pace end up making 2 additional birds nervous enough to flush near me and get in some good wing shooting. After 2 hours of hiking in 2 different areas I end up with 3 birds in the bag and missing my limit on 2 occasions.