Fishing, hunting are in high gear

Fall season may not arrive on the calendar for another two weeks, but fall is definitely here in Northwest Montana.

A sure sign of fall was the skiff of new snow on the upper peaks of the Swan Mountains last week.

During this time of the year, warm or hot weather usually occurs in mid- to late afternoon. Brisk cool morning temperatures tend to linger until noon. It's hard to find better weather to be out of doors.

One of the problems we have this time of the year is deciding what to do.

Archery season for deer and elk hunting opened this past Saturday. It's always fun to get out on opening day, even though the better elk hunting occurs later in the month.

Last year I went to the CMR (Charlie M. Russell) game refuge on opening weekend of deer and elk season. Day temperatures were in the high 90s and that seemed to detract from the hunting experience. Yet we saw elk every day and my son got a nice bull.

But being a northern boy, I always equate hunting season with cool fall weather, so this year I will delay my CMR elk hunting until mid-September.

In Western Montana, this is the year of the grouse! Mountain grouse season opened Sept. 1 and runs until Dec. 15.

After several years of low grouse populations, grouse numbers are really good this year. Every report I've received is about seeing lots of grouse and grouse with large clutches, sometimes with as many as 10 to 12 chicks.

Hunter harvest of grouse has almost no impact on grouse populations. Grouse numbers in the fall depend almost entirely on spring nesting success. Warm and dry weather in late May and early June dramatically affect survival of grouse chicks.

Wet weather in June tends to cause low chick survival because they have not yet grown their feathers that could shed cold June rains.

Whatever the weather was this past June, grouse chick survival was great. So this weekend my wife and I decided to hunt grouse and cut some firewood for the cabin. We hunted grouse for two mornings and saw a dozen grouse, bagging a mix of Franklin and blue grouse.

In Western Montana, the hunting category of mountain grouse includes three grouse species.

At lower elevations there is the ruffed grouse and Franklin grouse. Franklin grouse are also known as "fool hens" because they are not nearly as wild and spooky as ruffed grouse.

Fool hens often will let humans approach them to within rock-throwing distance. Sometimes in the fall, while hunting other game species and not wanting to spook other game with a shot, hunters will kill a fool hen with a rock.

The current hunting regulations specify that mountain grouse can be taken with a shotgun, rifle or archery equipment. Those regulations go on to say that, "All other means of taking are prohibited."

So perhaps killing a grouse with a rock is illegal? Killing grouse with a hand-thrown rock seems to meet the hunting standard of "fair chase," but may be technically illegal.

Ruffed and Franklin grouse tend to be in the lower and middle elevations near wet areas where green forbs are plentiful through the summer. Blue grouse seem to like higher elevations and ridge tops.

Even though my wife and I had successful grouse hunting this past Saturday and Sunday, Monday morning found us trolling for rainbow and kokanee. Fishing was good, too!

So get out and enjoy our early fall weather by doing some hunting, fishing or hiking. Fall coloration is beginning, so that is another good reason to get out into our Flathead Outdoors.