Spruce bookends
My brother and I were up near Temagami for a couple of days for some birds and maybe some fish (in the end we didn't fish as we really only had a day and a half of recreational time when it was all said and done).
We stayed at Ravenscroft on Jumping Caribou Lake. The cabin we were in was simple, dry and warm and that's all we needed.
We got there just before dark on Thursday and headed out to scout an area to see what was happening as the moose hunt was on. As we rounded a bend on the logging road there was a couple of OPP vehicles and the officers said they were checking for drinking/driving. Asked us what we were hunting for and where we were staying. Checked our hunting/fishing licences and FAC's and saw that our guns were cased as they were visible in the back seat. Zero issues and we were on our way. Saw lots of moose camps but there were a lot of trails left for us and back to the cabin for some food an sleep.
Next morning was cold and still. Storybook grouse hunt perfect. Minus 5C at 7:30am.
Loaded up and out the door. The moose hunters were easy to stay away from but some grouse guys were bombing around on their atv's and that made it hard to walk a trail that hadn't been driven but we did find a few as we went farther in and stuck to the tighter trails.
As good as the trails looked we only had a spruce grouse to show for our half-day effort. I missed one and there were 2 others that we didn't get a shot at.
As we pulled up to a spot that looked good we saw a Conservation Officer. We stopped and talked a bit. As it turned out he was working on a moose kill that appeared to have been poached. He gave us a bit of a run down on the grouse in the area and mentioned that the trail we were about to walk was normally good but he hadn't seen any that day, but driving in on the main road he had seen six. Not 100 metres down the trail we see our first bird. We ended up seeing 7 and getting 4 in a short section of the trail. We saw the C.O. later as he was going about his work and let him know how we had done.
As we drove out at 6pm he passed us in his truck, and gave us a wave, he had been on the dirt road around 8am that day and I don't know how far he was from the office, or home. Should have got his card.
Hot meal back at the cabin and bed. We had to pack before heading out the next day and knew it was going to be raining in the morning so there was no big rush to get out of warm bed.
Nine degrees Celsius and raining in the am. We timed it well and the rain stopped as we were just getting to the birdie area. Since I wanted to be back before my kid's bedtime we decided to hunt the same area that we did well on, rather then exploring a new one. After walking as far in as we could before needing to turn around to make it home in time it looked like a bad call because we hadn't seen a single bird. Out we start to walk and then we each got 4 singles in a 400 metres stretch of trail. Perfect ending.
I also got a spruce grouse in the rain on the way out and we were done. 10 birds, 8 ruffies and 2 spruce.
The whole family loved today's lunch.
Pan fried grouse and some canned sliced potatoes. Just the way my dad would have made them.
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Originally Posted by kickingfrog
