HUNTING Oregon and Washington wingshooters will fan out into the woods and mountains this month in search of ruffed as well as sooty, dusky and spruce grouse. (USFS)
Northwest Forest Grouse Prospects Coast Range looks good in Oregon, while Washington hunters will need to adjust to a new later start of season; fire danger will be key to access everywhere. By MD Johnson
C
ontrary to my usual SOP, let’s not beat around the proverbial bush here, but rather get right to the nitty-gritty of what to expect as the door opens to grouse season ’21, courtesy of Mikal Cline and Sarah Garrison, upland bird specialists for the
Oregon and Washington Departments of Fish and Wildlife, respectively.
BEAVER STATE BIRDS Northwest Sportsman Let’s start with a recap of the 2020 grouse season, eh?
Mikal Cline I was expecting grouse harvest to be down (last year), and that was true just because people
couldn’t access some of their favorite grouse hunting spots. Now we really haven’t been able to get into some of those burned-over or inaccessible areas to survey the birds and see what the situation truly is. We just now finished our forest grouse wing survey. We had to delay that process because we couldn’t all get together nwsportsmanmag.com | SEPTEMBER 2021
Northwest Sportsman 109
