I Don't Know Sir

From mid-May to about mid-July I keep a close eye on the weather. But not the weather in town. I keep an eye on the weather further north in Clinton, Boston Bar and Kamloops. The reason behind this is because during this time frame is when the grouse lay their eggs for the upcoming season. Now, I'm sure I've mentioned before, but grouse are not the smartest birds out there. The reason I'm mentioning this in this case is because grouse nest on the ground. And the survival of the eggs greatly depends on the weather.

Now, if the weather is sunny and hot during the aforementioned time frame the grouse season will be a good one. However, if it is rainy the survival rate of the eggs goes down.

This year I am a little worried. May was nice, hot and sunny throughout our various hunting grounds. June on the other hand, not so much. We (anyone living in the lower "rain"-land) made up a nickname for June. We called it June-uary. June was miserable. Dreary, rainy weather for much of the month. That weather has now fallen into July also.

So fingers are crossed in hopes that the eggs survived this unseasonable weather. We will only know the outcome for sure in September.

Hunting Cliffnotes

October 17 - 20, 2014

We left Friday night after we both got off from work. We headed straight out to Kelowna, as one of Justin's co-workers said that the hunting for grouse up there was awesome. He had been up there two weeks earlier and got about 19 grouse and some rabbits. (Which looking at the reg book afterwards, he is over his possession total for the grouse and if they were cottontail rabbits, those are illegal to shoot.) So here is the synopsis of everywhere that we went...

**Kelowna**
Beaver Lake FSR, Grizzly, Philpot - saw 2 grouse, 1 rabbit, and 1 white tail doe (we bought a white tail tag before going up) in two days. Not impressed at all.

**Rock Creek**
I don't know the name of the road that we went up. But after having an argument on whether to go forward or turn around (we decided to go forward thankfully) we ended up seeing grouse. Saw one covey of 6, then two coveys of 2. We should of stayed in Rock Creek instead of moving over to Tulameen...
Shot - 7 total -- Lisa 2 (including the only Spruce grouse) Justin 5

**Mount Baldy (between Rock Creek and Oliver)**
My bright idea to go up this FSR as a detour between Rock Creek and Osoyoos. Except we only saw one grouse and the road that was supposed to go back down to the highway didn't go through on the GPS but did in the map book so we decided not to go down it and ended up going to Oliver instead.
Shot - 1 total - Justin 1 (he shot it with the .22)

**Tulameen**
Only saw one grouse on either road that we went onto. We camped at the boat launch and finally had a fire.

Shot - 1 total - Justin 1

Total grouse for weekend: 9 --- Lisa 2, Justin 7

Hunting Cliffnotes

October 5, 2014

Tulameen - Britton Creek Rest Area
40km drive
Saw 3 grouse. Shot 1 - Justin

Stay on Tulameen side as there were no grouse once we turned onto Lawless-Britton FSR. Although we did see a young bull moose about 5 km away from the rest area.

First Grouse of 2014

September 19-21

Grouse hunting

☆Boston Bar☆
-anisle fsr.  no grouse. They have been logging up the fsr so any habitats are now ruined.

☆ Kamloops ☆
- Jamieson fsr. Saw 6 grouse total. Shot 3 total. Lisa 1 Justin 2.
- O'Connor fsr. Saw nothing.  Farm land. Google Earth area to see if goes back into sub alpine.
***Google Earth to see what else is down Westsyde.***

☆100 Mile House☆
-Keene Rd. Saw 2 grouse total. Shot 1. Justin 1. Justin blew its head off.  Lots of roads all interconnected. 

☆Clinton☆
- ski hill loop. Saw covey of 5 birds. Shot 2 by Justin. Lesson for Lisa: ALWAYS take a gun when you have to go to the bathroom.

☆Tunkwa Lake Rd☆
- saw no grouse.

Overall, it was an okay weekend.  Lots of driving. Too much heat for the birds still. High 20s in late September = not good grouse hunting