Gun Dog Forum

I was wondering, does anybody with labs or has hunted with labs know if labs are good grouse dogs? Please explain why or why not. If they are good how do you go about doing it?

Do you work multiple dogs and let them run in like a pheasant hunt? Or, do you just send a dog into thick cover to try and flush them out?

Ya'll give me some feedback

i have a 3 y/o lab that i have been waterfowlin with and i just started him on grouse this season. so far i have been told that as long as he has an interest in birds and doesnt range out too far he will do fine. what i have done so far has been walking logging rds in the mountains with the dog and when we jump a bird i shoot and he retrieves with no problem, he has done ok sniffing them out but the birds flush so far out that he doesnt realize he has flushed anything. I have had to line him up for a few blind retrieves that he never saw fall. He is starting to get the hang of the game though. I dont know about the dog but i have had a blast with it. Good Luck

thanks, my grouse hunting style is very similar to yours it should work

Not saying labs will not do ok on Grouse, but the smaller cover dogs do better in the heavy cover, like the small setters!

You better be a good shot! That's why I like a pointing breed for grouse. I get some time.

Labman21,
Labs can make good upland dogs when trained correctly, now their techniques are not like English Setters or most other pointing dogs, but they produce birds for gunning just fine. One of my close friends started out hunting Grouse with a Chocolate lab, she was one of the best dogs for finding snow ridden Grouse, anyone has ever seen. We sure shot a bunch of Grouse over her. She learned to stop and point, wait till we got close and flush on command, her downed bird finding and retrieving were naturally incredible. Paired with my old GSP that lab became one of the best upland dogs in the Grouse woods. Never sell a good lab short, they are some amazing animals, and that sir is from a pointing dog man, who trains Grouse dogs most every day.
RGD/Dave

my lab flushed these birds...hmm tasty

One of my hunting friends runs a lab and she is a grouse machine. When she hits fresh scent the hair on her back and tail starts to stick up and you better be getting ready because birds are about to either flush or be fetched. We hunt her my French Britt and they both find plenty of forest grouse.

labman, I've hunted all five grouse species over a lab here in Idaho and have done just fine. Just keep them in close and always be ready to shoot.

I think it really depends on the part of the country you are hunting....I live in the metro NY city area...and the grouse that survive are pretty spooky...particularly in the late season there will be no way both the dog and myself tromping near each other would get within shooting range....that being said out west I have grouse that I could have killed with a rock that would certainly allow you and a lab to get withing flushing range...and in some very very thick new cover in Maine...I have seen flushing dogs used with great success...but the cover was so dense they stuck around a while. So it really depends on cover and hunter pressure.

i have hunted forest grouse with labs for 18 years, both blues and ruffies and love how well they do.

I know I'm late to the game here, but I've been hunting my lab on grouse for 5 years. She's 5.5 years old and has gotten to he point where she's a good grouse dog. Before I got my english setter last year it was just me and my lab and she learned that if she waits for me to get into a decent shooting position before she flushed she'd have a better chance of a retrieve. So as each season progressed she started "poinitng" grouse and thus I let her range out past gun range. She doesn't have the range my english setter does, but that works great for me because I can hunt both dogs together. With this team I don't think we miss too many birds and wild flushes are minimized.

Of course they can.

While heavy cover can help hold grouse, the break in any cover is what really holds grouse.
Success with any flusher depends most upon time of the season and age of the grouse....followed by the dog's experience on ruffed grouse.
Hunt early with young grouse and odds will be in your favor.
Hunt in areas with a lot of grouse oddly helps.
Hunting pressured birds doesn't help tho any grouse can be caught between a rock and an open space....the occassional does not make the rule tho.
Hunt late season into January or February in the steep Appalachians where grouse populations are declining and your odds decrease because the dog simply does not cover the same amount of ground and the elevation makes keeping up with a dog more difficult.
If you are 20 yards below a flat then that is farther than 20 yards if a grouse busts out upon that flat.

Hunt the Great Lake states in early season, course they really don't have much of a practical late season, and you will move many birds with a flusher.

I've hunted grouse over great labs and terrible labs. Here in MN our cover is very thick. The single defining characteristic of a good lab, for me, is that it is deliberately trained to hunt within 20-25 yards of a gun. The bad ones are the big runners. You can't just take a duck dog into the woods and expect good results. They need to be trained to hunt close in thick cover.

The real upside is that they'll bring back birds you never even knew you hit.

Since you're from Montana, it's hard to tell if you are talking about sharptail or ruffed/blue? If you're talking sharptail, you tend to have warm/hot weather and wide open country. You need to have any dog in good physical condition for sharptail hunting but a lab in particular is going to have trouble overheating. Take plenty of water and keep an eye on him, most of all work him plenty prior to the season.

Pointing breeds can obviously take the heat much better than a lab so don't try to keep up with your buddy's shorthair...

Richie27 wrote:my lab flushed these birds...hmm tasty

How did you cook the birds after your lab got them? Did you freeze them after? Birds react to aging well if kept cool.

It a huge misconception that Labs are not, or cannot be GREAT ruffed grouse dogs. It does take a specific type of Lab to really excel at it though. A field bred, relatively small Lab that is more light-boned than what most people think of when they think of a Lab, is ideal. Labs are tough dogs by nature, so they can handle thick cover well and don't get hurt as easily as many other breeds. Many people prefer pointers, which is understandable, but a flusher (Lab, cocker, Springer, etc) can be equally as good. Most of the time a grouse won't hold on a point for more than a few seconds. A hard-charging flusher often temporarily pins the bird and subsequently flushes it. One of the advantages is that the bird is focussed on evading the dog-not the hunter. This often allows for some great shooting, especially if you focus on finding potential escape routes (edges, small openings, etc). Flushed birds often fly higher as well. If you're on Facebook, check out Grouse Commander. Sorry for the long winded reply!

Thanks for bringing up a 7 year dead thread to plug your Facebook page and spread the dogma that a lab that blinks a flush is a superior dog. You must hunt hard pressured birds in PA or NY that don't hold point for any longer than a few seconds. Please...

I cannot speak to grouse hunting...as I do not do that! But my retrievers hunt pheasant and quail regularly!

They are trained to work within 40 - 45 yards of us. They are also whistle trained to sit on whistle command! They all are field bred and are very strong at finding and following a scent cone. Even if they are in heavy cover, I can usually see their tail flagging when they are on scent! But you have to always be ready, they usually slow when they are on a bird, but they do not point or hesitate once they are at the bird. So you have to shoot quick, at 40+ yards many times. Sometimes, I will sit them when I see one of them flagging/ focusing on scent! This allows the hunters to 'line up' for a shot. And keeps the other two dogs off the flush, as they are not trained to honor, but they do sit on whistle. I then release the dog on the bird, with an ok command or touch her rear end.

It is all fun.....

Dogs excel at what they were bred for. For labs, this is spilling coffee and retrieving waterfowl. They can be handy on pheasants that run, they can retrieve grouse and flush them too far away to shoot.

isonychia wrote: For labs, this is spilling coffee and retrieving waterfowl. They can be handy on pheasants that run, they can retrieve grouse and flush them too far away to shoot.

I don't know I've shot a lot of grouse (sharptail, sage, blue and ruff) over a Lab. But you are right about spilling coffee.

I don’t have a ton of personal experience with labs and grouse, but I have a springer so I can talk so about flushers. Up here in MN, Ruffed Grouse are king, and my springer does just fine, especially if you know the right cover to hunt. My springer just seems to find birds... maybe even more than my Pointer... or more that are able to be shot at.