Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Outdoors blog

Hunting dusky grouse can give you the blues

Rich Landers' English setter, Scout, poses under golden larch with a dusky grouse the duo bagged in the Selkirk Mountains in October. (Rich Landers)
Rich Landers' English setter, Scout, poses under golden larch with a dusky grouse the duo bagged in the Selkirk Mountains in October. (Rich Landers)

HUNTING -- Hunting dusky grouse with a pointing dog is one part bliss and several parts misery and despair.

Duskies -- the name given a decade ago to the former "blue grouse" east of the Cascades -- are notoriously fickle about holding to a point.  

They might hold, as did the one pictured above, or they may not.

They might fly up in a tree and look at you or they may flush at the hint that you're coming their way and rocket downhill a quarter mile into the timber.

They like high ridges and openings at the edges of timber. Often the terrain is rocky.

It can be tough going -- and tough shooting.

I liken dusky hunting to a chukar hunt with timber mixed in to increase the shooting difficulty factor.

I was one for three on Saturday with two other birds flushing a full 40 yards away from Scout's solid point.

Tough quarry. 



Rich Landers

Rich Landers joined The Spokesman-Review in 1977. He is the Outdoors editor for the Sports Department writing and photographing stories about hiking, hunting, fishing, boating, conservation, nature and wildlife and related topics.

Follow Rich online:




Go to the full Outdoors page