Just flushed a grouse in Heard County

[Professor]

I was still hunting on a small ridge, navigating through a flooded area. A grouse flushed a few feet to my left. I have never even heard anyone mention grouse around here.

 

[coachdoug87]

Are you sure it wasn't a woodcock or even a hen pheasant that somebody released? I have never heard of a grouse that far south.

 

[coachdoug87]

Don't get me wrong, I hope it was a grouse. Maybe Heard county is where they went when they all left here!

 

[1eyefishing]

My britney once brought one home from the woods behind the house in Villa Rica... late 80's.

 

[NCHillbilly]

I flushed one once in Alamance County, NC. About 200 miles east of their normal range. I've been around grouse all my life. I am very, very familiar with them. I guess they ramble sometimes.

 

[hdgapeach]

Don't know what part of Heard you're huntin', but I do know of two bird hunting "plantations" in south west Heard County that set out pen raised birds for their hunts (mostly quail and pheasants). There's always some that don't get taken during the hunts. I imagine those operations have access to pen raised grouse if the customer wants to hunt 'em.

 

[greg j]

It may have been a pen raised Hungarian Partridge as i don't think Ruffed Grouse
do well in a pen raised environment. I'v never heard of Ruffs being pen raised before.

 

[coachdoug87]

Grouse have never been raised on a large scale. Nobody has figured out how to do that that I know of. Wish they could.

 

[quaildoc]

Not out of the question you saw a grouse there. They disperse in the fall oftentimes and they can go a long ways. The Piedmont of GA used to be grouse range until the early 1900s.

NCHillbilly, a grouse near Burlington is cool. I am from Person County NC. The last grouse was killed there in 1905 I think.

 

[NCHillbilly]

Not out of the question you saw a grouse there. They disperse in the fall oftentimes and they can go a long ways. The Piedmont of GA used to be grouse range until the early 1900s.

NCHillbilly, a grouse near Burlington is cool. I am from Person County NC. The last grouse was killed there in 1905 I think.

This was a few miles ouside of Mebane right on the Alamance/Orange line, back up a steep ravine with mountain laurels and rock outcrops, looked almost like a mountain holler.

 

[coachdoug87]

NC Hillbilly, are , are you finding any grouse in North Carolina this year?

 

[Professor]

Sorry I never got back to this thread. I guess I was hunting and missed the replies. I was hunting in the south east corner of Heard County near Corinth. The bird was not a pheasant. However I just took a look at some images of Hungarian partridge and that certainly could be what I saw.