Here in NC I have hunted grouse since 1976 , I owned a certified scale and weighed each one , the average weight for grouse until 2005 was 1 pound and 8 ounces , with an occasional male weighing 1 pound 11 ounces and lots of them at 1 pound 9 ounces , they fed on a lot of things but acorn sprouts and fox grapes were there what I found the most , fern was almost in every crawl also , what I found by my own research was that the mortality rates for young birds was when the leaves first fall off the trees and the culprit was the great horned owl. They by themselves destroy the chance of the spread of the population of ruffed grouse. Some broods that I kept up with would be eight young birds in September with their mother and usually just before the hunting season opened in late October that same brood would be down to two or three young birds and their mother ,, all credit due to the great horned owl.
Bobby if you see this I'm in North Georgia and would like to chat grouse hunting with you and get some more opinions on habitat here in our southern mountains. I think out habitat is not quite as good as NC now a days.
The great horned owl is a natural predator of Ruffed Grouse and has been for hundreds of thousands of years. The problem comes down to a lack of appropriate cover. The two have coexisted since time immemorial so we cannot blame the owl for the decline of grouse, but a lack of young growth forest and dense cover/brush piles for them to hide in. Also, studies now show the biggest cause of ruffed grouse decline since 2000 is West Nile Virus. My suggestion is to build some brush piles, plant more berry producing native trees, and improve the quality of the habitat. It might not hurt to learn how to install bat houses to help reduce mosquito populations on your property.
@@MichaelKensinger i never owned any of the property where I hunted ,,back then all we had to do was ask ,,they would let me hunt grouse , I am afraid to even ask now in 2022 , besides I am too old to walk the straight up and down laurel bluffs where I used to find so many , a lot of the places that I used to hunt now are big developments and are full of deer and turkeys,,not a grouse to be found ,,forty years ago I got limits in those same places , and the number of grouse would be so many that if I told you how many I would see some days ,you would call me a liar. But the first key thing I will tell you is ,,I never saw a deer track ,,never saw or heard turkeys, and they were lots of bears.
Here in NC I have hunted grouse since 1976 , I owned a certified scale and weighed each one , the average weight for grouse until 2005 was 1 pound and 8 ounces , with an occasional male weighing 1 pound 11 ounces and lots of them at 1 pound 9 ounces , they fed on a lot of things but acorn sprouts and fox grapes were there what I found the most , fern was almost in every crawl also , what I found by my own research was that the mortality rates for young birds was when the leaves first fall off the trees and the culprit was the great horned owl. They by themselves destroy the chance of the spread of the population of ruffed grouse. Some broods that I kept up with would be eight young birds in September with their mother and usually just before the hunting season opened in late October that same brood would be down to two or three young birds and their mother ,, all credit due to the great horned owl.
Bobby if you see this I'm in North Georgia and would like to chat grouse hunting with you and get some more opinions on habitat here in our southern mountains. I think out habitat is not quite as good as NC now a days.
@@luke0927 828 493 4305
The great horned owl is a natural predator of Ruffed Grouse and has been for hundreds of thousands of years. The problem comes down to a lack of appropriate cover. The two have coexisted since time immemorial so we cannot blame the owl for the decline of grouse, but a lack of young growth forest and dense cover/brush piles for them to hide in. Also, studies now show the biggest cause of ruffed grouse decline since 2000 is West Nile Virus. My suggestion is to build some brush piles, plant more berry producing native trees, and improve the quality of the habitat. It might not hurt to learn how to install bat houses to help reduce mosquito populations on your property.
@@MichaelKensinger i never owned any of the property where I hunted ,,back then all we had to do was ask ,,they would let me hunt grouse , I am afraid to even ask now in 2022 , besides I am too old to walk the straight up and down laurel bluffs where I used to find so many , a lot of the places that I used to hunt now are big developments and are full of deer and turkeys,,not a grouse to be found ,,forty years ago I got limits in those same places , and the number of grouse would be so many that if I told you how many I would see some days ,you would call me a liar. But the first key thing I will tell you is ,,I never saw a deer track ,,never saw or heard turkeys, and they were lots of bears.
fantasstic
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