Photo by Ron Sinfelt

Each year, tens of thousands of visitors flock to Pennsylvania's Laurel Highlands, the mountain region just over an hour east of Pittsburgh. Some of these visitors are looking for mountaintop views and fall foliage, but there is another visitor who heads to Pennsylvania's highest ridges with a pointing dog and a shotgun in tow for some of the best public land grouse hunting in southwestern Pennsylvania.

These mountainous sections of Fayette, Somerset and Westmoreland counties are bounded roughly by state Route 119 on the west, the Conemaugh River on the north and the Somerset-Bedford county line on the east. This region includes 12 state game lands, seven state parks and 50,000-acre Forbes State Forest.

According to Merlin Benner, a Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources biologist, the reason for higher grouse numbers in the Laurel Highlands is simple -- there are more trees there.

"That's pretty much the largest single block of forested land in the southwestern part of the state," said Benner, noting that past damage from gypsy moths and subsequent salvage cuts have created a lot of regenerating forest in the region.

STATE GAME LANDS
Probably the most popular destination for Laurel Highlands grouse gunners is State Game Lands No. 51, which, at 15,505 acres, is the largest SGL in the region. It extends from the tiny village of Chalk Hill along U.S. Route 40 on the south and across the Youghiogheny River to South Connellsville on the north. It is indeed up on the mountain.

The eastern slope of Chestnut Ridge features rocky, steep hillsides covered with thick saplings, clinging grapevines and thorny greenbrier. A full day's hunt is an experience that your muscles will feel several days later!

One disadvantage of SGL 51 is hunting pressure, which can be extreme at times (notably weekends and holidays). With its proximity to Uniontown and Connellsville, two of the largest cities within the Highlands, and its reputation for producing high numbers of flushes, it's not unusual to see a half-dozen other parties in the area during the grouse season.

If you're looking for a game lands where you can escape the crowds and still find birds, an excellent recommendation is SGL 271 in the southwestern corner of Somerset County.

At 1,856 acres, SGL 271 is tiny in comparison to SGL 51, but the site contains what local folks call "The Big Cut," several hundred acres of regenerating clear-cut land north of Route 40 and east of state Route 523.

SGL 271 is just a 15-minute drive southeast of Confluence, where supplies and meals are available. From the peak of the ridge that runs through the SGL, hunters can take in the view of the fall foliage on Chestnut Ridge to the west or Mt. Davis, Pennsylvania's highest point (elevation 3,213 feet) to the east.

The Big Cut is characterized by thick stands of maple, sassafras and oak saplings, all draped with dense greenbrier vines. Grouse love these nearly impenetrable thickets and feed on the bluish purple berries of the greenbrier.

For the hunter who's willing to brave this difficult habitat, the reward is an escape from the hunting pressure and, often, two or three flushes per hour.

State Game Lands 111, a 10,520-acre tract midway between SGLs 51 and 271, has some grapevine tangles and mountain laurel thickets that make good fall grouse habitat as well.

The highlight here, however, is woodcock hunting, said Mark Banker, a Ruffed Grouse Society regional biologist, who recommended the alder thickets that surround Cranberry Lake at the northern end of SGL 111. On a hunt there last November, Banker claims his party flushed 15 woodcock and bagged five birds in just 45 minutes.