No game bird can match the beauty or challenge offered by Southern grouse. To jump one is a reward unto itself.

I blame it on the dog. If it wasn't for Hershey, my partner and I would have stumbled right into a hornet's nest of grouse and walked away with what could have been a limit of birds.

The slobbering, bull-headed chocolate Lab raced up the steep mountain ahead of us into a tangle of grapevines, greenbriers and wrist-thick poplars just below the ridge of the mountain. Birds started boiling out of the jungle-like brush, two and three at a time. Most topped out over the crest and sailed off to quieter grounds. Dan screamed for his dog as I stood there, slack-jawed at the spectacle, half furious at the blown opportunity, half thrilled at the sight of so many grouse rising from one patch of cover. Dozens of birds scattered in a thunderous procession.

Finally, a lone grouse sprang from the thicket and sailed downhill, directly overhead. A single shot from my Browning Citori folded the cock. Another grouse rocketed over Dan's head and ended up in a pile on the forest floor. The report pulled the damnable dog out of the thicket, but I feared the worst. How could there be any birds left after so many beat it for safer, quieter country?

"How many?" I asked. My friend was 20 yards away, but I had to crouch to see his orange hat through the dense cover.

"I got one," he said.

"No, how many birds do you think got up?"

"Thirty. Maybe more."

Still shaking from the rush of adrenaline, I took five steps; another grouse exploded at my feet and brought me one bird away from Virginia's three-grouse limit.

Welcome to some of the country's finest grouse hunting. My friend, his good-for-nothing dog and I weren't in the fabled grouse coverts of New England or Minnesota. Dan and I were high on a ridge in Virginia's George Washington National Forest, less than two hours from the suburban sprawl of Washington, D.C., and two hours south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Think of quality ruffed grouse country and most avid bird hunters think of the tamarack and aspen forests of the upper Midwest. Michigan and Minnesota are two of the most popular grouse destinations in the country. The abandoned apple orchards scattered across New England's rolling countryside are also legendary among dedicated ruff hunters.

For some reason, few avid wingshooters consider the home of the Confederacy to be a worthy grouse destination. That's a shame. Although that incredible episode of dozens of birds in one small pocket was an extraordinary event, at least in my short obsession with ruffed grouse, it's not out of the question to flush so many birds in a single hunt. On a typical day--in a good year--my partners and I flush as many as three dozen birds, occasionally more. Sure, we have bad days now and then, but our favorite mountain thicket never fails to produce at least a half-dozen heart-stopping flushes. Like grouse hunts anywhere, the number of shots is dramatically lower, and the actual number of birds killed is lower still. Most hardcore grouse hunters measure a day by the number of birds flushed, not in the weight of a game bag.

Nearly every state that has a portion of the Appalachian chain within its borders has a huntable population of ruffed grouse. My home state of Virginia is loaded with quality grouse coverts, and states as far south as Georgia have decent numbers of these russet game birds. While I dream of someday packing up guns, boots and gear and heading north, I can't break from the old fisherman's adage: "Never leave fish to find fish." With so many grouse just an hour from my doorstep, why should I go anywhere else?

Southern grouse offer the ultimate wingshooting challenge. Don't plan on coming home with a limit of birds, but do expect a lifetime of memories shared with a close friend.

Steve Henson, habitat chairman for the southern Appalachian chapter of the Ruffed Grouse Society, finds outstanding grouse populations throughout the mountains of southwestern North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. The avid bird hunter says that when grouse cycles are on the upswing, he expects to flush as many as 20 or more birds in a day.

"There are some years when I can flush more grouse in North Carolina than I can when I go up to Minnesota," he says. "Of course, we just don't have the vast amount of quality habitat that they have up North, but there are some fantastic pockets of cover down South."

Like ruffed grouse everywhere, the birds in the South are prone to wide fluctuations in population, due primarily to nesting success and brood survival in the spring. Buford, Georgia, resident Don Cathey figures grouse cycles don't fluctuate in the South quite as much as they do in the North, however, and echoed Henson's claim that it's not uncommon to flush 20 grouse in a day where he hunts in Georgia's Chattahoochee National Forest.

Both of these avid grouse hunters spend much of their time busting through thorn-riddled thickets on public lands in their home states. In fact, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia all have national forest land and good numbers of ruffed grouse within their boundaries. Although Maryland doesn't have any federally owned forests, it does have several large state forests that have good cover and lots of birds.

DIXIE GROUSE CONTACTS Maryland DNR Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries West Virginia DNR South Carolina DNR North Carolina Wildlife Resources Tennessee Wildlife Resources Georgia State G&F Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Resources

"Some of the best habitat is on national forest land and on state wildlife management areas that have been manipulated specifically for grouse," says Gary Norman, forest game bird biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. "Generally, you can find the highest numbers of grouse in clearcuts that are seven to 20 years old."

The problem, Henson says, is that pressure from environmentalists is changing forest service policy and logging activity is either decreasing or stopping altogether. That spells an uncertain future for the South's ruffed grouse, but several state wildlife agencies are utilizing grouse-friendly management on public hunting areas. Until existing clearcuts mature, Dixie grouse hunters can continue to reap the benefits of such politically incorrect operations on federally owned lands.

Although ruffed grouse have the same basic needs no matter where they live, Southern grouse rely on different food sources than their Northern kin. According to Norman, ruffed grouse that live in the South are likely to favor wild grapes, acorns, greenbriers, dogwood berries and a host of herbaceous plants. Henson says he looks for "green stuff," particularly around seeps and streams on north-facing slopes.