Pretty good day for Grouse.... I got two females, a red-phase Ruffie and a Franklin's.... Ruffed Grouse come in two colour phases, grey and red.... Most of the ones in this area are grey, but there are a few reds.... This is a female, you can tell by the indistinct bars on the central tail feathers.... You can see the reddish-brown on the tail feathers, compared with my previous Ruffies which were mostly grey phase....



I skinned a couple of feathers off the head of a female Blue Grouse, and lost another female Franklin's, the second shot at a pair when I got the first one.... In addition, we spooked another Ruffie and two more Franklin's.... The Franklin's I lost was a solid hit and flopped off the opposite side of the road to the one I recovered.... Molly grabbed the easy one first, and then couldn't find the other.... I should have grabbed the easy one and sent her after the other one straight away.... We all scoured the area for quite a while but came up empty....

I'm now sitting at 28 recovered and 2 unrecovered for the season so far.... That's the best I've ever done, and it's only the end of September....

Bob