Today I hiked around at 9000 ft. and above in the Snowy Range in SE Wyoming with my 16 ga. Ithaca Model 37 in hand. It was a little warm but not bad. My buddy and I put up a total of eight Blue Grouse. His young GSH didn't figure into the shooting but she retrieved nicely.

For once I was the one who had the shots. Went two for two on separate flushes with 1 oz. #8 Winchester shells. Then I missed twice on the most open bird of the three I got to shoot at. But I'm happy. 50% on mountain grouse is way above my average.

What a great day! Elk tracks all over the place. I handled the first big hike of the season in pretty good style. And we only missed the truck by about half a mile when we cut the road on the way out. :cool:

Sounds like a fun day - glad you got to go stomping around!

sounds like fun. I'm gonna be down your way this weekend it looks like visiting a friend that lives there and going to go up in the mountains to do some scouting.

George

What a great way to spend the day! I picked up two yesterday above Cokeville when stocking up my bearbait barrel. Used my Browning 20ga bps and #6's. Carried slugs along just in case that pudgey bruin was in the area. Nothing touched the bait- will come back on Thursday with more goodies.

Whiskeysprings, hope you have good luck on the bears.

I was out again last Saturday closer to home. No birds but the dog got all wet and nasty so he thought it was a terrific day. Then in the afternoon it started raining and I felt like I was in Florida in the middle of Frances. Fortunately we were back in the truck by that time.

Dang, you all are lucky. The Ca. grouse season won't open till late Oct. I can't wait. We also can pick up a Willow Ptarmigan, if we get very lucky. :confused: :D

naumann,

So how was the rest of your hunting season?

:-(

Not my best year. Never went after mtn grouse again. I had a couple flush from overhead and scare the dickens out of me while working through some good elk cover.

Skipped antelope season.

Had some surgery on the opening day of deer season and ended up with only one day of hunting. No deer.

Hunted seven days for elk and never caught up with them: didn't see, hear, or smell any. Well, I did see a couple hundred of them lolligagging around in the middle of a ranch across the highway from the public land.

This month I took a "trophy" fawn whitetail in Missouri.

I did manage to knock down three pheasants on each of my two days of hunting on state managed (release) areas.

Still it's a privilege to live in a country where we can pursue the tradition of hunting regardless of filling a tag or not.

Mine was okay, too. (Thanks for asking.)

Hunted one day for grouse. Was actually scouting for moose as I had a cow moose tag. Walked about two hours before I finally shot 3 ruffs. Walked back to the truck and saw another covey about 100 yards from where I had parked three hours and 5 miles earlier. No moose.

Hunted 7 days before finding a cow moose without a calf. Had a great time. Walked a lot of miles, burnt a bunch of gas, camped a few days, and saw some wonderful country. Because I had the moose license, I didn't buy an elk license as I thought I'd be hunting in areas where I hadn't seen many elk in the past. (My daughter and I are the only ones who eat red meat in our home, so I thought a moose would be plenty for the year.) So I thought it was kind of odd that I saw more elk than moose. Had a spike bull at 30 yards and no license in my pocket. Oh well, he'll be bigger next year if he survived.

Wonderful fun. Better than any amusement park ever constructed.