side of the line 
of flight which 
you have care¬ 
fully marked. 
Patience, thor¬ 
oughness and 
persistence, 
oupled with quick, straight shooting 
tnd a fondness for rough country are 
sssential to the making of a good aver- 
ige on ruffed grouse. But he 
s well worthy of the best efforts 
>f both man and dog, and when 
'rom a high headed point an 
>ld cock jumps up some twenty 
^ards ahead and goes booming 
through the trees, you are well 
repaid if a well-directed shot 
wrings him plumping down on 
;he leaf - strewn ground. And 
when finally, after duly hang¬ 
ing in state ip the larder, the 
last rights having been per¬ 
formed by a competent chef, he 
appears on the dining-table, no 
game bird of any land can sur¬ 
pass and few equal the excel¬ 
lence of his spicy, white-meated 
tenderness. 
A steady moderately close 
ranging dog is the best for 
these birds, and one that is not over 
anxious to get too near to his points. 
As in quail shooting many sportsmen 
use a pair of dogs when after ruffed 
grouse, but where the country is thick 
one dog is generally more convenient 
and just as serviceable. A twelve 
gauge with one barrel cylinder and the 
other modified choke, and with shells 
loaded with number eight shot is about 
the most useful armament for this 
kind of shooting, most of which being 
in woodlands, is at comparatively 
moderate ranges. 
A FULL choke bore will carry its 
charge too close and will unduly 
tear and mutilate most of the game. I 
once had a very emphatic example of 
this. Two of us were hunting together, 
my friend with the dog working down 
through the middle of some swampy 
ground thickly overgrown with tall 
was pointing and a moment later a fine 
grouse boomed up and bursting out of 
the thicket flew directly across and 
some dozen yards in front of me. Fear¬ 
ing that he would get out of sight in 
the wood I immediately threw up my 
gun, a full choke twelve and fired. The 
grouse fell very dead, but on moving 
forward I was disgusted to find only 
two wings, the head and a small bit of 
breast, the rest of the bird having dis¬ 
appeared completely before the close 
flying charge of shot. 
On my last good day with the ruffed 
grouse, in Southern Canada, I took 
with me a steady old dog of none too 
certain pedigree and a native boy of 
fourteen years, and it was hard to tell 
which was the more useful. Our best 
sport we had one afternoon when 
we hunted over some rough 
overgrown hillsides that had 
once been cleared and through 
several small deserted farms 
bordered by wood groves of beech 
and pine. Working first on the 
brushy hillside, I got several 
good points and bagged four 
grouse. The boy was a tip top 
retriever and never lost a bird 
once it was down. Later in the 
afternoon we worked the edges 
of the woodlands by the old 
farms and I had a splendid 
hour’s shooting, adding nine 
more birds to the bag. 
Unfortunately, unlimited 
shooting by a constantly in¬ 
creasing army of guns has 
made such inroads into the sup- 
briers while I kept abreast along the ply of birds that it has become neces- 
edge through some open woods. My sary in many states to so limit one s 
companion called to me that the dog bag of grouse as to render their pur¬ 
pose 612 
When the opening burs disclose full brown¬ 
skinned chestnuts . . . only the pines and 
firs cling to their perpetual garb of Lincoln 
green. Hunter and country boy each feels 
that same keen thrill as when, in the act 
of stepping over some moss-grown log 
whir-r-r, whir-r, away goes a stalwart ruffed 
grouse, startling the woodland stillness with 
strong, swift-beating pinions. ... Is there 
one among the family of Forest and Stream 
readers who does not love the ruffed grouse? 
|i|l!l!l!!i!!!!;;!!:!iiillil!I!ii!l!l'!!!!l l i! ! 
