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Arizona Blue Grouse Hunting Log September 2005 16-17 September 2005 Near Sunrise/Big Lake Region
Male Blue Grouse For those of you who don't know...this is what a male Blue Grouse looks like. Unfortunately I have yet to see one in real life. In fact I still have yet to see any Blue Grouse, male, female or baby in real life. After years of hunting for them I guess I've just never been in the right place at the right time although I've been in the right places! So for the short version of the story: We had a great horse ride and saw NO Blue Grouse. See pictures below. For more details read on.
Joe riding Yazzy near Pool Knoll, 17 September 2005 17 September 2005, our first day of a 2 day hunt. We camped near a cabin due East of Pool Knoll, near Sunrise, AZ. This is some of the most beautiful country on earth. Meadows full of grass, Pines, Aspens, Spruce the scenery just can't be beat. The weather was also very nice.
Honey with Mattie (Pointer) hitching a ride We spent the morning hunting the area around Pool Knoll where a friend and seen a clutch of birds a week or 2 prior during a field trial. We of course saw nothing, but it doesn't mean the birds weren't there! In the end it was a great trail ride to get things going and we had fun watching the dogs work again after the long summer. As you can see in the picture above, Mattie got a lift back to camp. Joe's horse Yazzy had stepped on Mattie prior to this picture being taken, but she was fine, I just put that in here in case Joe reads this so he'll feel some more guilt.
Above: Preston on Star with Blu running along side, Under: Blu running in a meadow In the afternoon we loaded up and made our new camp south of Big Lake in a location near Middle Mountain and Campbell Blue Creek. A friend of mine had told me he'd seen Grouse there on a few occations during Elk hunts. We took a ride headed South down Campbell Blue Creek and again had a really nice horse ride. On the way back we had a little bit of excitement when we ran into the biggest bull Elk I've ever seen. I could be way off but I'd say he had a good 5 to 6 feet between points. He was HUGE. Because we were on horses he was curious and didn't take off running. So we sat and watched him for a few then moved on. When we got back to camp both dogs (Red and Trainwrek) were missing. Red finally showed up but Eric and Joe had to go looking for TW. The found him right back by the Elk and apparently the Elk and TW were facing off! Wonder who would have won that one! RIP TW.
Coming into a meadow on Honey and Star 18 September 2005, Day 2. I woke up early and took One Eye for a spin around the area for a walking hunt. We were gone for about an hour and although we didn't see anything there's something special about being up early in the morning all alone, with dew on the ground, gun in hand and a dog running out in front of you. After breakfast we spent the morning hunting in a loop to the North of camp. Again it was a nice horse ride and we saw nothing for most of the ride. We got into some really nice country and we really should have seen some Grouse...but we didn't. As we were getting nearer to camp we bumped what we thought may have been a very large Grouse. We got off our horses and with in seconds saw Joe and Eric walking along the lower slope of the mountain. Turns out it was a Turkey that we had bumped and not a Grouse. So now we at least saw a bird other then the usual. After we got back down into a valley we found a stream, watered the horses and headed back towards camp. We topped over a ridge and headed down a pretty steep mountain side with camp in view. about 1/3 the way down Blu went on point and some birds flushed out in front of her. We all jumped off, but due to the small size of the birds we saw we were pretty sure they weren't Grouse. Sure enough they weren't. We (like in years past) had just bumped a covey of Mearns Quail. We spent the next 10 minutes letting the dogs point singles as we tried to catch them with our hats. We got pretty close a few times. As we road off to go back to camp Joe almost stepped on a bird before it flew (as you can see in the picture below with the shadow).
Mearns Quail (center of picture): Note Joe's Shadow, his horse almost stepped on this one
Above: 3 shots of different Mearns Quail we tried to nab
Sam on Jake heading down Campbell Blue Creek In the afternoon we headed down Campbell Blue Creek and WOW what a beautiful little canyon we got into as we followed the running water down the mountain. Again we saw no Grouse, but we had a GREAT horse ride. Before we arrived at this location we spotted a large Coyote stalking Roxy (Eric's dog). Eric got off his horse and tried to see if he could get close enough to the sneaky devil to get a shot, but he noticed us and took off up the mountain before he could do so. We road down into another beautiful valley were the below picture was taken and the headed back up the mountain to camp. On the way we saw a large doe who watched us from about 30 yards off before taking off.
Honey with Roxy
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