New Boots Make all the Difference Grouse Hunting

About Six and a half years ago I moved to Tooele. I bought a pair of boots. I wore the tread off in one hunting season. I bought a better pair of boots. I blew the heal out in 5 or so seasons. But I didn’t quite realize it. It wasn’t until the end of last season hunting in Hell’s Canyon for Chukar, and applying a new coat of water sealant to my boots, that I realized the stitching was bad. But I’m cheap. So I kept wearing them. This year I have been out hunting three times. I’ve got a couple places I like to go. My favorite never failed until this year.
Oh I see grouse, but I wasn’t hitting. The first trip was nothing new. I wonder why I even attempt middle canyon. The brush is so thick you can’t get a good shot. But it is fun trying I suppose. But up above Jacob City, that is my favorite hole. I nearly always get a couple good shots. I remember two years ago I got three in one clearing. I shot one as it was heading down the clearing, reloaded my first barrel and went to fetch the bird. Sure enough two more flushed. Bang bang. Best shooting I’ve ever done. 9 pounds of meat in my back pouch later and I was waiting to limit out on grouse for the day. Didn’t happen.
Grouse hunting in Utah can be some of the trickiest wing shooting there is. You walk across, up and down some of the steepest terrain known to man. Add to that a thick mat of pine needles and cones shedding off the Douglass fir and Ponderosas, underbrush waist high, and countless trees knocked over by numerous avalanches. Might find it better not to try after a snow storm, I did. The grouse have the advantage in this territory. It doesn’t matter that you have a twelve gauge loaded with six shot and five.
The grouse themselves don’t often cooperate. Sometimes they just sit. Sometimes they fly out behind you. Sometimes they fly from the other side of the tree. Flushing, they sound something like a Black Hawk taking off from a battle field. The adrenaline comes in and you pick up your gun as you look to see where the bird is. Half the time it is ducking behind another tree when you pull the trigger. Lots of trees get trimmed in this manner. But then you get those days.
The weather is cool, and your breath dissipates in front of you as you head into the clearing. You hear that familiar flush, and see the bird. You pull the trigger and watch it fold. Beautiful. Nothing makes a wing shooter feel more alive and accomplished. But this year that wasn’t happening, and I was missing the good shots.
So Friday came along, and my friend Kevin and I decided to make an afternoon of it. The grouse were thick but not cooperating, and again, even missing the good shots. We ended up heading down a steep draw and my boots were not helping. I wasn’t getting the footing I needed to feel comfortable, and was beginning to think these boots might kill me. Then it hit me, they might have everything to do with your lousy shooting. Not that I’m always that great of a shot mind you. But I’m not as lousy as I was shooting either.
Saturday I decided to buy a new pair. I bought the best I could find at Big 5, for 29.99, Itasca something or other. Then I decided to break them in for an hour or two before sunset. Well, it’s never a good idea to hunt the same place two days in a row, but I did anyway. I only saw two grouse.
Heading into a clearing at the far end of a patch of pine, I had one grouse fly out from behind a sizable Ponderosa. Going on a little further, I got the flush or a life time as a second one took off from the underbrush like a Huey under fire. Under fire it was. The number six shot strafed its back, and knocked it on the first shot. Shooting slump cured. (I hope).
In all honesty though, it was a good lesson. Make sure your boots are in good repair. Wing shooting is tricky and if you can’t get your feet planted firmly, likelihood is you are going to miss. Not to mention it’s just dangerous walking around in thick forest on a steep hillside with a shotgun and shoddy shoes.