Sooty Grouse

What is a sooty grouse?

The sooty grouse (Dendragapus fuliginosus) is the big, dark grouse of the Pacific coast, from northern California through Oregon and Washington into southeast Alaska. Like its interior twin, it carries an older name that refuses to die: hunters on the coast still call it blue grouse, and plenty just say hooter.

Until 2006, sooty and dusky grouse were one species, the blue grouse. Scientists split them by range, genetics, and voice. The sooty took the wet coastal forests and the west slope of the Cascades. The dusky took the interior mountains. In the field, range is your best clue to which bird you are looking at.

A sooty grouse weighs 2 to 3 pounds, twice a ruffed grouse. Males are dark sooty gray, with a yellow to orange eye comb and yellow air sacs on the neck that show in display. Hens are mottled brown. Compared to the dusky, the sooty is a shade darker overall and shows a clearer gray band on the tail tip.

The voice is the legend. In spring, a male climbs high into a fir or hemlock and hoots, a deep, booming, five or six note series that rolls through the timber. The sound carries hundreds of yards and seems to come from every direction at once, which is why finding a hooting bird in a 200-foot tree humbles everyone who tries. By hunting season the woods are quieter, and flushes are heavy and fast.

What do sooty grouse eat?

Sooty grouse eat berries, greens, seeds, and insects through summer and early fall, then live on conifer needles through winter, mostly fir and hemlock. As with the dusky grouse, the diet is a moving target that climbs the mountain, and your hunting has to climb with it.

Early-season food is low and sweet. Salal berries, red huckleberry, elderberry, blackberries along road edges, clover and forbs in clearcuts and landings. Broods work these openings hard, and logging roads add the grit birds need. That is why a September sooty hunt so often looks like a long walk on a gated timber road with a dog making casts into the cuts.

When fall rains and frost knock the soft food down, birds shift to needles and start moving up. This is the same reverse altitudinal migration the dusky grouse makes: down the food ladder in spring, up the mountain in fall. By late season, sooty grouse sit in the crowns of mature conifers along high ridges, sometimes barely flying for days. The bird that was underfoot in a clearcut in September is a speck in a fir top by November.

Where do you find sooty grouse?

Sooty grouse are huntable in four states: Washington, Oregon, California, and Alaska. Washington and Oregon offer the easiest access, with birds through the coast ranges and the west side of the Cascades. Southeast Alaska’s island rainforests hold strong numbers, and northern California carries the southern end of the range.

Public land makes this hunt. National forests, state timberlands, and managed private timber with walk-in access cover most of the range, and the gated logging road network is the natural way to hunt it. Target younger cuts with berry ground early in the season, then follow ridges and upper road systems as birds climb toward wintering timber. Rain is part of the deal on the coast, and honestly it helps the dog work.

Seasons generally open around the start of September and vary by state and zone, and forest grouse rules on the coast sometimes lump sooty grouse with ruffed grouse under one limit. Check current regs before you plan a trip, especially on managed timberland where access rules change year to year. For a state-by-state starting point, see our guide to where to hunt grouse.

The sooty’s inland twin is the dusky grouse, the other half of the old blue grouse and the bird you will chase on Rocky Mountain ridges. If you cut your teeth on Northwoods partridge, our ruffed grouse guide shows how different this coastal hunt really is. And because a 3-pound grouse at the edge of a clearcut is a different shot than a partridge in the alders, our 12 vs 20 vs 16 gauge comparison will help you pick the gun for it.