Adventure Time! Hunting for Small game, 3 grouse for dinner- Nov 5, 2022
On todays hunt I took my 2 oldest boys out for a small game hunt to see if we could secure some dinner. We were chasing for Grouse and Rabbits. My weapon selection for small game goes as follows: .22 Long Rifle if I am feeling adventurous, .410 Shotgun if I am particularly hungry and don’t want to risk the miss, and a 50lb Compound Bow if I am feeling particularly skilled.
Today I felt adventurous. My .22 LR is equipped with a cheap airsoft red dot sight. It works very well for the $25 investment, but gets thrown out of adjustment fairly easily when bumped and requires routine accuracy checks. This is on the upgrade list, but I am happy with it $ / value wise. https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/crosman-airsoft-tactical-red-dot-sight-with-large-lens-0754727p.html
So I packed up the boys, and we went down an old inactive logging road about 30 minutes away from home base.
The first grouse we spotted got the better of me as I watched my 3 attempts ping the ground immediately around his head. After this I decided it was time to site in the .22 due to that pesky red dot sight (easy to blame the sight!).
The next bird went down shortly after and the boys were dispatched to retrieve!
The second bird required some chasing into the bush but went down simple enough.
The final bird of the day was the exciting one. I saw a bird up the road on the left shoulder. I slowly approached to judge distance, loaded the gun, but saw that it was too far to try to line up. In my area you are not allowed to shoot down or across a bush road so I knew I had to get closer to force it to walk into the tree line. Well as I approached it got spooked and flew across a steep gully and flew deep into the forest. My .22LR does not eject the round in the chamber so I am forced to shoot the loaded round. I took a quick look for any other potential grouse and saw none. So I approached the shoulder of the road and decided to try and kill a tree to double check the site accuracy from being bumped around.
Immediately after shooting I saw a different grouse fly behind me across that darn gully crossing! Uhg, this is why we should take our time and scout properly! Well as I took my walk of shame back towards my truck I noticed some movement in a nearby tree and saw my new target. I walked off the road to get a closer shot. I shot it out of a tree and it started to run, so I quickly engaged the pursuit. As I caught up to it I saw it staggering towards the drop off to the water crossing, I lunged forward, hat and camera flying off my head and caught it with the tip of my gun as it started rolling off the edge of a 25+ foot drop off. My camera had stopped filming during the exciting part but I quickly pulled the bird up from the ledge and grabbed a quick video, adrenaline showing in my shaky voice.
To see some video from todays hunt click the link below!
Thanks for checking out My Wild Life!
-Justin
