Dusky Grouse Shooting. 
To my mind the most splendid of the many 
American grouse is the dusky, or blue, grouse 
found in the Rocky Mountains north to Alaska, 
and west, at various points, to the Pacific coast. 
To be sure it is not as large as the sage grouse, 
yet it is a big bird, sometimes weighing up to four 
pounds, and nearly two feet long. Its tender 
and delicate flesh is always good eating, and its 
habits of life in underbrush and timber along 
and October, when they are full grown, it is 
quite different, however. Then they are strong 
of wing and fairly well able to take care of 
themselves; all the birds are large, and while 
they still present a fairly easy mark, they fly 
with great swiftness, and from the situations in 
which they are often found the shooting often 
calls for readiness and care. 
In the old days, when no one in the West 
thought of carrying a shotgun, it was often 
necessary to kill birds for food, and then the 
of them could be secured, pains being taken al¬ 
ways to shoot the lowest bird—in deference to 
an aged tradition—in order that others might 
not be alarmed by a fluttering body falling close 
to them. 
One of the best morning shootings that I ever 
had at dusky grouse was in Northwestern Mon¬ 
tana on one of the high benches that overlook 
the St. Mary’s Lakes. It was a rounded knoll— 
an old lateral moraine—a mile or two long once 
overgrown by aspens, which had been killed by 
WILD DUCKS FLYING OVER THE CANAL IN THE IMPERIAL VALLEY, IN CALIFORNIA. 
Courtesy of Allen Kelly. 
the mountain sides make it seem much more a 
bird for sport than the larger sage grouse, which 
is found on the dry hot open prairie. 
In these days when cities, towns, villages and 
farms are scattered all over the range of the 
dusky grouse, there must be a multitude of men 
who follow this bird with dog and gun, and 
shoot it much as people in the Eastern States 
and the Mississippi Valley shoot the ruffed 
grouse, yet curiously enough we hear very little 
of killing this bird in a sportsmanlike manner-. 
Shooting the dusky grouse before the broods 
are full grown, and when they are more or less 
scattered out to feed, is but tame sport. The 
birds lie like stones and fly straight and easily, 
dropping at a touch of the shot. In September 
young broods of dusky grouse often gave one 
a little practice as they stalked ahead of one 
up the valley, or stood on the branches of the 
trees of the mountain side. At a distance of 
twenty or thirty yards, provided one thoroughly 
knew his rifle, it was considered fair shooting 
to knock the heads off four out of five of these 
young birds. Inevitably there was a miss now 
and then, when a walking bird would unex¬ 
pectedly stop, or would move its head to one 
side just as the trigger was drawn, but as I say, 
we used to be able to cut the heads off four out 
of five. 
In the same way when a brood of dusky 
grouse flew into a tree and stood there un¬ 
frightened by the report of the rifle, a number 
fire and had now fallen and rotted. A new 
growth of aspens just starting reached only 
about up to the knee. Among these little aspens 
grew huckleberries and the ground was more 
or less carpeted with the vines of the bearberry 
—the smoking weed called “larbe,” perhaps a 
corruption of the trapper French word I’herbe. 
On these berries several broods of grouse were 
feeding, and after camp had been made near the 
upper end of the knoll, I took my shotgun and 
walked back over the ground where several 
birds had been started. 
It was not long before, with a thunderous roar, 
a full grown bird rose but a few yards before 
me, and, scaling off on the fresh breeze that 
was blowing down the lakes, was thirty or forty 
