Feb 17, 2023 5 min read

In 2006, I arrowed my first deer with a longbow, built by Ed Maurin of Stringtown. I gave the deer a half hour after the shot to expire. I climbed down from the tree stand, taking my time, making my way up the hill in the direction of the downed deer. It wasn’t long before I saw the white belly and knew that Dad’s old Fred Bear Razorhead broadhead from 1956 had done the trick.

As I approached the deer from behind and extended the bow to touch the rump, ensuring that the doe was indeed dead, I got one of the biggest surprises of my sporting life. About six feet in front of where the deer lay, a grouse erupted from cover, a dense grapevine thicket. I launched the bow in the direction of the heavens, spun around and brought my right knee even with my chin.

John Travolta would have been proud of my Saturday Night Fever moves. It took me a moment to compose myself, barely realizing what had occurred. As my heart rate returned to somewhere below 130 beats per minute, I marveled at witnessing my first eastern Greene County grouse in a dozen years. I have only seen one since, less than a mile from the same spot. The other, sitting in a Catalpa tree in the middle of Dry Tavern while lying in my hammock, reading a Burton Spiller book describing “Crazy Flight.” If you are not familiar with the concept of “ruffed grouse crazy flight,” do some research for next week’s column as a homework assignment.

I can’t guess how many older gents I have witnessed regaling similar tales to younger hunters. … “You wouldn’t believe the number of grouse that we used to flush from the hillsides of Greene and Washington counties.” Some of these old timers even recall missing a bird or two, over the years. Inevitably, the conversation downshifts to, “But you don’t see grouse around any more.” Often the youngster (or maybe a not so youngster) says “What’s a ruffed grouse?” It is here where we begin.

Bonasa umbellus by its correct name is the official state bird of Pennsylvania. Weighing a little over a pound, and averaging about 16-19 inches in length, the pointy headed ruffed grouse makes an incredibly loud and startling wing beat as it flies off in avoidance of predators. The best word to describe the sound may be an explosion. Grouse hold close until a predator nearly steps on the bird, sending it to flight, usually putting some sort of cover between predator and prey upon exiting. Ruffed grouse are a mixture of brown, black, white and other earth tones and have extraordinary camouflaging ability. They are in my humble opinion the finest game bird we have the honor of pursuing. The ruffed grouse is a gentleman.

One reason I hear, attributing to a lack of grouse, is that populations of wild turkeys have displaced grouse. While there is some biological support for this theory, I do not subscribe, but rather our habitat has become more conducive to the wild turkey population.

A second hypothesis floated is that predators such as redtail hawks, coyotes, foxes, etc. have led to the decline of ruffed grouse in western Pennsylvania. While I agree that predators are plentiful and grouse are not, I would maintain that we are no longer seeing ruffed grouse because of the land itself rather than its occupants.

I am hearing more about the presence of West Nile virus and believe that in other parts of the nation, this is, indeed, having a negative effect on ruffed grouse populations. Biologists from Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin all seem concerned with and alarmed by West Nile on the rise. While I am not a biologist, it’s hard to argue that numbers of grouse are declining in areas that have sustained larger populations of grouse for significant periods of time.

The seemingly largest contributing factor is lack of timbering, especially clearcutting. While the trend in western Pennsylvania has shifted towards selective timber harvest, I can tell you that I have witnessed, first hand, the benefits of clearcutting on ruffed grouse populations in Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

When an area is clearcut, the understory comes back thick, keeping grouse safe from predators. Grouse find refuge from avian predators within these dense stands. Food is more available in these thick parcels, too. The older the cut, the more open (less protective) it becomes. Wisconsin DNR makes maps of the timber cut concentrations and you can surmise where the birds are most likely to be just by looking at the cut map. Think wrist sized stands of trees. North central Pennsylvania continues to clear cut, modestly, and there are viable populations of ruffed grouse along the north central tier. For what it’s worth, if we want to see a return of our ruffed grouse to southwestern Pennsylvania, we’ll need to return to the good ole’ days of clearcutting.