PA or NY grouse... HELP

[bduke7645]

Good evening, I am looking for some help with a late season grouse hunt in PA or NY, I have a gsp I hunt out west ALOT as well as we kill are fair share of woodcocks here on the easternshore of MD. A buddy and I are trying to plan a grouse in January ( we have never hunted grouse ) and just looking for some help info habitat,food,hangouts anything would be helpful I would even look at a guide ?

Thanks!

 

[Macintosh]

Pa and the southern tier of NY probably your best bet, maybe up in the st lawrence valley—once theres snow on the ground the dog’ll have an even harder time so all the areas Im familiar with are iffy that time of year. Can be fun if you get good weather and low snow, but you can’t count on that. If the dog can still run you can hunt in the snow, but the birds spend an awful lot of time in trees that time of year so a nice warm day after a thaw when seeds and stuff melts out on top of the snow is about the best you can hope for. Havent hunted PA, but there is some ok bird cover and a few birds on some of the wma’s south of the nys thruway. Basically you’re looking for regenerating old fields, clearcuts or swamp edges with alders, aspens, birch, dogwoods, etc that is over your head height, focusing near south facing hillsides and evergreen thermal cover. You can usually see that type of cover on satellite imagery. Bird covers are held very close and no one will send you to specific areas for that reason, so if you want to get your feet wet and see what grouse cover looks like so you can find it on your own in the future I’d hire a guide if you can, maybe ask if you can run your dog for some covers too. Most pointing dogs have a hard time transitioning quickly to grouse from pheasants or woodcock, so depending on what the dog is used to hunting could have a learning curve.

 

[Garshark]

Pa season isn’t open in January December 16-24 is the second split. Get north above 80 and look for 7-12 year old cuts plus thick river bottoms

 

[Garshark]

This is from the last day of the first season