One way to avoid interference from obstacles is to choose your path more carefully when you're alone, circling the outside of a briar patch instead of plowing through the middle of it, or keeping to the edge of a deadfall or grapevine tangle instead of crawling through it.

TAKE YOUR BEST SHOT
If you're hunting by yourself, concentrate on the best cover.

"Don't waste time in marginal cover," Banker stated. "Stick to places where you're most likely to produce a flush."

This makes sense for a couple of reasons. First, a lack of action leads to distraction, which leads to missed shots. Second, by hunting good cover, you put mathematics to work for you -- the more flushes you get, the better your chances of putting a bird in the bag.

A group of hunters or one hunter with a dog can sometimes afford to spend time in marginal cover hoping that it might hold a bird. The lone hunter cannot, because there's a better than even chance that he'll end up passing by those birds or only get a fleeting glimpse of them.

Banker also recommended that solo hunters focus on the smallest good covers available. This way the birds will tend to have fewer escape routes and you can cover the area more thoroughly. Follow up every missed shot for a second opportunity. Don't worry -- you'd have to flush a grouse a dozen times to tire one out!

CHANGE IS GOOD
One of the mistakes hunters make is repeating a pattern of grouse hunting. In familiar cover, it's easy to walk down the same logging road, from the same direction toward the same apple tree or brushy corner, only to see the same bird disappear over the same ridge every time.

This grouse soon becomes what Banker calls "the unkillable bird." Admitting that he has also fallen prey to repetition, his observation is that the birds sometimes "knew me better than I knew them."

Grouse are masters of avoidance. When trouble comes from Direction A, their escape route will invariably be in Direction B; the more times this works for them, the better they understand it.

One simple way to counteract this is to simply change your pattern of approach. Move in on a cover from a different direction, or hunt it in a circular path instead of a zigzag pattern, and you can sometimes buy precious seconds by forcing a bird to sit longer while considering its options. Or, if you're lucky, he'll make the wrong choice and flush in a direction that gives you a clear, open shot.

GET THE LEAD OUT
A duck-hunting acquaintance of mine has a motto in his blind: "The gun goes up full and comes down empty."

This applies just as well to solitary grouse hunting.

"Some guys seem to be afraid to pull the trigger when a grouse goes up, but in my opinion you might as well empty your gun every time," Banker said.

This was a frequent failing in my younger years, but I eventually realized that grouse hunting meant few clear shots and little time to prepare for a shot. I finally began to kill more birds when I learned to take more shots and trust my gun to spread a pattern of lead where the bird was going, not where he was.

Speaking of patterns, Banker points out that when hunting alone the shots will almost always be longer. Banker suggests a modified choke, at least in the second barrel, for that long back-up shot.

INDIVIDUAL ADVANTAGES
There is one big advantage to grouse hunting alone. When the inevitable embarrassments occur, there's no one around to witness your being outsmarted by a bird with a brain smaller than the tip of your thumb.

"You can cuss all you want to when you're hunting alone," Banker said, "and you don't have to worry about upsetting your dog or annoying your buddies."

Which begs the question, if a hunter cusses in the woods and there's nobody there to hear it, did he really cuss at all?

Hunt grouse alone this fall and you will find out!