# Pic. of my nephews first grouse



## Crawl (Apr 14, 2004)

Enjoy!

http://www.ohiogamefishing.com/photopost/data/500/511AJ_037-med.jpg


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## Darwin (Apr 12, 2004)

I put it in the post for you, I hope you don't mind. That is a fine looking bird. I got to help trap and band several of those in 1999-2000 in the Athens/Morgan county area. Congrats to your nephew!!


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## Crawl (Apr 14, 2004)

Thanks! How in the world did you trap and band grouse? I never knew that they banded them?!


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## Darwin (Apr 12, 2004)

First off bear with me on the drawling!  
This trap was not fool proof but it worked very well. This is an arial view of it. The trap works on the same basis as a minnow trap in that they go into it but cannot seem to find thier way out. The line you see going into the trap is 18" - 24" tall chicken wire stretched tight and staked to the ground. This is up to 150' in length on both sides of the trap and sometimes there are multiple traps on a line. How it worked.... Well you know grouse habitat, you would have to clear a path approx 3 feet wide for the length of the trap and lines. usually they were placed straight up and down a hillside. Anyway for the most part a grouse will walk along the hillside on it's daily wonderings and eventually would come to the line of the trap. For whatever reason, most of the time they would walk the line into the trap without jumping over it or going the other way? 
Once they were in the trap they would be caught w/out really being caught as they could not find the way back out. Anyway this trap would also catch woodcock and box turtles. 
The grouse trapping was done over a 4 year period with the Division of Wildlife and it was a Hunter mortality survey. Each grouse was sexed, aged, banded and the location was noted.


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## Crawl (Apr 14, 2004)

Very interesting! Thanx for taking the the time to explain.


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## john_michaels72 (Oct 19, 2004)

Hey Buddy Pink, what kind of traps did you use to catch the grouse with? Thanks John


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