16ga.com ~ View topic - Getting Ready for next years Grouse Hunt in the UP!

Gentlemen,

Now that I have started to heal up from my open heart surgery Ken Graft and I are starting to get ready for next seasons UP Grouse hunting trip in October. Got to admit Ken did most of the work on this Grouse hunt, finding a great dog friendly new log cabin lodge, right in the middle of Grouse country.

The log cabin looks fantastic and I am excited. Ordering some RST & Poly SpredR's, maybe purchasing a new back tracker, looking over my Grouse hunting vests and Browning Gore-tex Grouse Jacket & several pair of shooting gloves. Pack Gore-Tex upland pants 3 pair, and some old & new upland shooting shirts. 1 Pair of quick snap Browning Chaps.

Getting some new hunting socks, prepping several pair of Grouse boots, find my boot dryer, here at the main home. Get together some of my Grouse hunting hats.
Ordering some new lenses for my hunting glasses, the old Browning multi lens glasses that I use are needing some additional different colored lenses, for this trip.

Need to bring the Dogtra T&B Dog Collars down from our log cabin in Potter/Tioga. Make sure all are in working order, fully charged. Emergency medical Kit for dogs & humans.

Need to talk to Ken about coolers for transporting our shot Grouse.

Need to bring my good Beretta shell bag down from the mountains for this trip. Make sure all the goodies for my L.C. Smith guns are in the shell bag, cocking tool, Singer Sewing machine oil, Break Free & Birchwood/Casey Gun Scrubber. Pack NRA multi gun cleaning kit.

Making sure my everyday clothing is clean and packed for the trip.

Order AAA trip tick to both the new Log Cabin and the Gateway lodge.

Dig out soft cases from home closets, for the L.C. guns I am planning to take.

Dog Cages, Adams Spray, portable feed & water Containers, Multi tool. Pet Safe yard fence & collars for around the log cabin we will be living in for a week or two.

Suggestions on anything else I might need, for this 1 or 2 week Grouse hunt.

Pine Creek/Dave
Pine Creek Grouse Dog Trainers

What fun, WHAT FUN!!

Camera for sure

Dave,
It sounds like you have a good list put together.

If you are not familiar with the area you are going to hunt then I would highly recommend a GPS so you can backtrack the route you took in i.e. see the route on the screen vs just an arrow to the car. A compass (or backtracker) is usually all you need, but it gives you a direct line and the U.P. is full of swamps that you do not want to enter. So you need to know how to get around them and back to the trail that will take you to your vehicle.

If you go in the first two weeks of October then also pack lightweight gear. The temperatures can vary dramatically in a few days. The 60’s one day and 30’s the next.

I didn’t see any Muck boots on your list and you will want them in the A.M. or for low lying areas. There has been a lot of rain up there the last few years and some areas are really wet and the grouse like those areas if it is warm and when the canopy and understory clear.

Where are you going to be? I have a pretty good handle on the Escanaba State Forest and the Hiawatha and Ottawa National Forests. Michigan has something called GEMS sites and while the cover is excellent they get hammered.

Good Hunting,
Mike

Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 1308 Location: Western WA

Bring your trout gear for those lovely sunlit afternoons after you bag your morning limit of grouse.

The browns and brookies are very active and aggressive up there at that time of year especially in the smaller streams, and bright streamers and dry flies really work great. Medium sized spinners (match the blade to the water and skies) will also bring them in for those of us Neanderthals who stoop to using them on occasion.

Don't forget to work the tag alders closer in for the woodcock. And bring some bismuth in case you discover that secret beaver pond.

Is there a lovelier place to be in October?

Good Luck and Bon Apetit
B

Joined: 07 Sep 2011 Posts: 567 Location: wheeling, wv

I know exactly where you are staying--stopped over to see Kenny at that cabin last year. I always bring several pairs of boots, including rubber ones. You will be fine, I have been hunting that area since 1986. Be there at least 2 weeks again this year. Mike, he will be just south of Ralph a few miles.
One of the things I always take with me is a vacumn sealer for the grouse, keeps them a lot longer in the freezer that way.
Oh, and Chicago is right. A GPS and compass are important, although I often can navigate with my phone apps also. I'm bettin' you know how to use a compass.
Harold

3Birddogs & Chicago,

Harold sense you already know where we are going to be, stop over some time between the 17th and the 24th and take a walk thru the woods with us.

I always have a compass when I go into the Grouse woods. I am still recovering from my heart surgery so I will limit how much walking I will do in any given day. Will stay in contact with Ken all the time when out in the Grouse woods hunting. Will mostly be training my new Gordon and Ryman pups on this particular trip to the UP.

This will be a new area of the UP for me, use to hunt in the Gate Way area years ago, love the GEMS projects in MI, wish Pa would do the same.

Ken has a pair of Muc boots set aside for me, and I will probably take 3 other pair of boots with me and my boot dryer. I am hoping the rain will give us a break, even years ago we had a lot of rain in October in the UP. With a couple of pups under 1 year old I will try to stay away from the big swampy areas.

The vacuum sealer is a great suggestion, will take the one out of my motor home with me. Case you are wondering my Grouse hunting motor home is to old to take to MI any more, made in 1984 regular carburetor, and the gas would cost a fortune, cheaper to rent the log cabin, especially with both me and Ken going.

Mike, thanks a lot for the suggestions I appreciate it big time.

Brewester11,
No fishing this trip, maybe next time! I would fly fish and never get any rest, Dr would definitely not like it. He is limiting my hours in the woods as it is.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

I stay up near Gwinn and I have a buddy over in Channing that Harold knows. I spend a fair amount of time hunting south of Ralph and that area is just terrible for birds, because I cleaned them all out of there years ago. Nice place to stay but don’t hunt around there, rotten cover and absolutely no birds. For that matter the entire Escanaba State Forest is void of grouse and woodcock, a complete waste of time. Go and hunt West of Sagola and bother Harold. Very Happy

Good Hunting,
Mike

Chicago,

Mike it sounds like Ken Graft picked a pretty good spot for us to Grouse hunt in the UP, sounds like we may have invaded your home turf!

all the best

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

Joined: 26 Apr 2016 Posts: 369 Location: Vermont

Good for you Dave. Prepping for the hunt is almost as much fun as going! Joe

Joined: 07 Sep 2011 Posts: 567 Location: wheeling, wv

Mike, rarely hunt west of Sagola anymore, hunt east and north. Found a lot of new spots following the trail of feathers left by some guy staying outside of Gwinn who hunts setters.
Ha, we need to meet up some day.
Stay healthy all. BTW Dave in 2018, on my next to the last day of hunting in the UP, I suddenly couldn't breathe when exerting. Drove the 800 miles home, and found out my mitral valve had ruptured( actually, the chordae tendenae). I have always been a competitive runner and tennis player, in great health. Had open heart at Ohio State, and within 6 weeks was cleared to go back to running, and later tennis. Back to normal now, whatever that is, and hope you soon will be also.

Dave,
Correction, go hunt north of Sagola and west of M-95 and bother Harold Very Happy

Harold, I would love to get together with you but I hunt with a group of folks from Marquette and rarely get to see all of them. Part of that is weather and the last few years have seen a lot of rain. I am past the point of going out in bad weather. Rich and I usually only see each other for one or two days and we were neighbors when we lived up there.

We could easily meet at UP North Lodge (near Gwinn) for dinner and have Dave and Ken join us. I realize that is a bit of a haul but there really isn’t any other restaurant relatively close. At least it is pavement all the way there. There is plenty of cover nearby including GEMS spots with easy walking for Dave.

Dave, by the time you arrive the GEMS areas will have been hit so hard the birds are driven well back in the cover. However, they still have some great areas including one long loop road not far from where you will be staying. If I was only up for a week I would concentrate on areas with lots of cuts and get out very early in the morning to be the first arrival at one of them. When I say early, I mean daybreak. You will not believe how many hunters are in the area.

Good Hunting,
Mike

Chicago,

Mike Ken advised me that he ran into very few hunters where he has been hunting, I hope that continues. Where I have my log cabin in Potter County, Pa if you see a Grouse hunter in the woods where you are hunting, it means there are too many Grouse hunter around.

Because I have not been back to the UP in a quite few years I am looking forward to working my pups on some flat land instead of our Pa mountains.
Our mountains are very old and some people say they are not very high, when they start walking them Grouse hunting, that seems to change quickly, especially for sportsman like me who have had medial problems lately.

Hope to see you for both a Grouse hunt and for dinner!

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

It all depends on Ken’s definition of not a lot of hunters. If someone is in one of my favorite spots, then for me that is a lot of hunters. However, lots of people know what good cover looks like so it is hard to find a “secret” spot. I have a few where I have never seen another vehicle, but I know the wildlife biologists and loggers know where they are and many of those guys hunt. They are also over an hour down nasty two tracks and that burns a lot of time getting to them. So I go maybe once or twice a season.

I almost rented a log cabin down by LaBranche this year and that is SE of where you are staying. However, it was just too far from civilization. The closest grocery store would have been 45 minutes away in Escanaba. Being up there for five or six weeks I like to be close to Marquette for groceries, seeing friends and great restaurants.

Good Hunting,
Mike

Chicago,

Mike I sure agree with you and am hoping we run into very few Grouse hunters in our coverts. Definitely want to see my young dogs learning to handle as many Grouse as they can. It's not how many birds we gun that is important to me, the dog work is my priority. My pups always get massive Grouse contact in their 1st 2 years, hope I can still make this happen.

We plan on spending time at my Log Cabin in Potter/Tioga, Pa after we return from the UP, to give the pups even more time in the Grouse woods, this season. Hopefully we will be able to spend the end 2 weeks of October and the full month of Nov and most of Dec, working with the pups in the Grouse woods. Ken can spend as much time with us as his business will allow. Ruby Kens full blown Gordon Grouse dog will be a big help training our new pups, I hope he stays as long as possible to help me out with training the pups.

We train our Grouse dogs 90% on wild Grouse, it's why I have such great Grouse dogs to hunt with when the dogs are just over 2 years old. In the past the UP Grouse have not been as spooky as our Pa Grouse, mostly because of hunting pressure and our incredible predator problems. Bringing the pups to the UP will be very advantageous for their 1st season initial training.

Great Grouse hunting to you Mike,

Pine Creek/Dave
Pine Creek Grouse Dog Trainers

Kim Graft with Pine Creek Ryman Maggie Mae, before I even took possession of Maggie, Kim wanted to keep her!

Thanks and that sure is a nice looking setter.

When I lived in the north all my dogs saw was wild birds and now they see both. In fact they probably see more pen raised birds than wild birds. That isn’t my preference but just what it is. Depending on the pup I think it can lead to the dog crowding wild birds, but I now do a lot of hunting on birds the DNR releases in WI and birds at the hunt club I belong to. I still get to see good dog work and the dogs don’t seem to mind pen raised birds. They still point them and retrieve them with the same enthusiasm, so that works for me.

We can touch base closer to the season to see if we can grab dinner after a late P.M. hunt. I can put you in good cover within 15 minutes of the restaurant, but the areas get hit really hard. Every hunter I know in Marquette knows those areas and they are the first ones you pass on the way to everything else.

Good Hunting,
Mike