I don’t hunt during deer season for a couple reasons… the biggest being safety. I hunt golden retrievers and even though I have them in orange vests, I don’t trust Sergeant Jim Bob of the orange army to not shoot my dogs. A lot of guys are idiots and shoot at anything brown that moves. I only hunt public ground so I don’t even take the chance of putting my dogs at risk. The other reason is I love deer hunting and devote at least 2 weekends a year to it.
Totally understand the safety thing. Same reason I don’t pheasant hunt for 9 days in November. Plus like you, I deer hunt that period.
It’s still odd that there was virtually no one grouse hunting from Thanksgiving to the end of the season, especially given how mild out it was.