Grouse gunning is unpredictable Outing at Mile 27 gives memorable experience

Throughout Maine, partridge hunting is far more than a pastime, fall hobby, or challenging autumn activity, it’s an integral part of our state’s hunting heritage. Sportsmen visit the Pine Tree State from all over the country to partake of our fall foliage and flushing upland game birds.

Ruffed grouse are as enjoyable afield as they are delicious tablefare, and these are two of the many reasons this explosive flushing, erratic flying quarry is so addictive to pursue.

A brief explanation of shooting techniques might be in order at this time. Sports who trail behind a well-trained pointing dog, wait for their four-legged canine companion to sniff out and hold a bird, then make their shot on the flush are gunning grouse. The bulk of regional outdoorsmen who are riding logging roads or traipsing along tote roads and bagging any bird that flies, runs, walks, or just sits on a stump are huntin’ pa’tridge. That old bird in the hand theory translates to a partridge in the fry pan, bean pot, or stew kettle for local folks who truly anticipate wild game meals each autumn.

I’ve hunted both ways and dropping a fast-fleeing grouse weaving through thick forest is an accomplishment. On the other hand, I’ll tell you straight and true that I have no compunction whatever about knocking a partridge off a log, and you know the funniest thing? I’ve never been able to taste one bit of difference between a flying or running bird.

The trick to finding success is to be persistent, because sooner or later you’ll be in the right place at the right time. Perhaps you’ll happen on the largest flock of birds you’ve ever seen in one spot. My high is only six, but I’ve heard tell of others seeing a dozen at once. Possibly your next partridge hunt will be the best you’ve ever experienced. Birds will be everywhere you look, shots will be perfect, and there’ll actually be a partner to witness and share the memorable event. Let me tell you about the most memorable partridge hunt of my life.

Hunt of a lifetime

Garth practices dentistry as a living, but lives to hunt partridge. His entire year, especially fall office hours, are directed toward and molded around ruffed grouse season. Bob spends most of his life driving from one end of the state to the other installing, rebuilding, and fixing office equipment. If he’s not in the car, he’s in a plane traveling to and from a training session on new and improved machinery to streamline business practices. Despite all the traveling, put a shotgun in his hand and a dawn to dusk day riding and walking for partridge is never questioned. Our trio had hunted together for more than 25 years, and it was only appropriate that we three birdmen experienced the finest, most memorable grouse hunt of our lives together.

Over the years our hunting sites have ranged from Clayton Lake in the far North Maine Woods to Shin Pond in southern Aroostook. On this particular outing we decided to revisit an old logging road that had provided several seasons of dependable bird hunting for us over the past decade, until it grew in and became unproductive and nearly impassable. Two years previously a logging crew had reopened the road and forest with a good deal of selective cutting, and we judged that the current condition should offer some excellent grouse cover once again.

It was a 45-minute drive from Presque Isle to Ashland and then on to Six Mile Gate checkpoint, where we picked up our day passes for the area. Another 45 minutes on the Pinkham Road followed, which is like traveling over an old washboard with an occasional bomb crater thrown in to keep driving in the dark interesting. It was still about 10 minutes before legal shooting time when we turned onto a side road designated only by a small red 6- by 8-inch piece of wood with the number 27 painted on it. Each mile of this well-known, heavily traveled main logging route is designated by one of these insignificant mile markers on a random tree.

When shooting light finally arrived, guns were uncased, shells at the ready, and we were all primed for action. Garth was driving, Bob was riding shotgun, literally, and I was the backup shooter; as in back up and stay out of the way until it’s your turn. We idled down the trail, all heads turning and eyes searching the roadside banks and trees, when less than 100 yards from our starting point sat a fat partridge picking gravel along the edge of the road.

Bob hopped out, loaded his over and under, stepped around the front of the truck and the bird ran up the bank. Garth pulled up near the escape route, and he and I disembarked, loaded up, and moved on either side of Bob. Bob spotted the partridge making a run for it about 15 yards back in the brush and took a snap shot through the cover. Wrong bird! The first grouse was actually hunkered down in the high grass right at his feet, and exploded into thunderous flight right in his face when the shot went off. Nearly taking his cap, the bird proceeded directly over the Jeep behind us. Not wishing to shoot our transportation or our buddy, Garth and I held our fire. One down and one away; we were hitting .500.

Back in the truck and down the road we went, but within 500 yards there was another partridge. This one was sitting on a bent sapling, arched high, right over the middle of the road. I made short work of my first bird of the outing and walked down the road to pick it up.

As I turned to meet the approaching Jeep, I found it had stopped halfway to me and Garth was getting out and loading his gun. He peered high into the woods, shouldered the long gun, hesitated a couple of seconds and touched it off, and then tore off into the woods. Somehow a grouse sitting silhouetted in a fir tree nearly 30 yards into the forest had caught his eye as he was driving to meet me. We could still look back and see the main road, had been hunting less than 15 minutes and each of us had a bird. No one was getting skunked today.

Our hunting troupe was just more than half a mile into the woods when a pair of partridge scurried down the bank and across the road about 25 yards ahead. As we eased closer, a third and fourth bird followed the parade. Needless to say, we were all out and in hot pursuit in short order.

Our trio spread out about 10 yards apart and formed a skirmish line behind the fast departing fowl, sneaking and peeking as we edged along. Garth flushed a bird and downed it through thick leaves with a fine going-away shot. The report scared a bird near Bob and it flew into a nearby fir tree, from which it was quickly dispatched. The two other grouse did a Houdini act and all I got out of the deal was a short walk in the woods and a bit of verbal abuse from my buddies.

Over the next half hour, we were out of the truck four more times to give chase after two singles and two sets of doubles, all of which preferred to be road runners rather than sitting ducks. Upon returning to the vehicle, much to our awe, there stood a partridge right in the tote road 20 feet behind the truck. Up over the bank the bird ran, with Garth and Bob close behind on either side of the exit route. I waited in the road in case another mentally challenged grouse decided to walk by.

Soon I heard the unmistakable sound of a bird flushing and a shout that it was coming my way. When a flying blur came over the brush to cross the road I shouldered my 20, swung, and fired. To everyone’s total amazement, especially the bird and I, the grouse folded, and in just over an hour of hunting we had half our limit in the bag.

Mile 27 logging road wanders only four miles into the forest, and then becomes impassable, except on foot. There are a trio of great old skidder trails at the end of the driving road that always offer a few chances at birds, and these were our initial goal for the morning. But here we were only halfway along the road and spotting partridge every whipstitch. Our band of birdmen was just beginning to explore mile three when the most unique experience of our trip, of any hunt we have ever been on, in fact, took place.

It was Garth’s turn to shoot, and it came as no surprise when he jammed on the brakes and said there was a bird sitting right on a roadside log. Among fairly thick brush about 20 feet off the road lay an old blowdown at least 40 feet long, and old eagle eye had spied a grouse sunning itself. When I got out the front passenger side, I spotted the partridge at once, despite the heavy brush, sitting facing away from me near the center of the old tree. Bob moved down the road in back of the truck in case the grouse should fly or make a run for it. Garth went around the front of the truck and up the road to get a better angle and more open sighting area.

All at once his shotgun came up and fired, and to my total amazement he missed. The partridge hopped into the air a few inches at the shot and turned around to face me. “You missed it, but I’ve got a clean shot,” I said, raised my scatter gun and took a shot. Before I could say a word, Bob shouted, “I’ve got it, it’s running down the log my way,” and a 12 gauge blast punctuated the exclamation.

What happened next was a scene right out of a “Three Stooges” flick. We all began piling through the brush, trying to out-shout each other that we couldn’t have missed, the bird fell, and several other jumbled descriptions. This was all interrupted by a partridge exploding from cover right behind the big log, winging between fir trees and out of range without one of us raising a gun. It sure was a conversation stopper.

But just for a few seconds, as we each amazed the others by walking to three distinct spots along the old decaying tree, searching, locating, and displaying three very dead partridge. Disbelief, followed by surprise, and then total amazement and elation took over the next 10 minutes as we each told our part of the story. To this day it’s astounding that we shot three grouse from one log and none of us saw the other birds, nor the fourth one that got away. It’s a good thing we had each other as witnesses.

As for the rest of the morning, partridge kept appearing from every nook and cranny. Some outran us, others outsmarted us, and a few we just plain missed. Three more fell before 9:30, two running, one flying, and we each had a limit of four birds in about 21/2 hours of hunting. We never did get to the end of Mile 27, and on the way back out we saw four more grouse in the road, on a stump, and along the bank.

Thirty partridge is the most I’ve ever seen during one outing, let alone on a short stretch of woods road in less than three hours. There have been daylong outings when I’ve seen only one or two grouse and got none. Bob, Garth, and I still talk about that hunt that turned a so-so fall season into a lifetime memory. Grouse gunning is and always has been a nebulous sport. Each hunt, each day. and every fall is different, but don’t be discouraged, be persistent. Perhaps there’s a Mile 27 in your future.

Outdoor feature writer Bill Graves can be reached at graves@umpi.maine.edu