Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game Ruffed Grouse

Ruffed grouse numbers appear to be pretty good in MN this year, 14 hours of hunting with 67 ruffed grouse contacts and 42 woodcock contacts. The broods seem to have broken up already as only three of the contacts had 2 or more birds. Most of the grouse were pointed but the birds were running like pheasants making things tough for an inexperienced dog I took with. He broke and flushed the birds more than I cared for and it looks like some remedial training will be undertaken over the next couple days. Even my dogs broke a couple times but they only needed a quick reminder to remain staunch.

The woodcock were even running, at least as best they can do. I tried to take a video of one with the cell phone but there was too much leaf clutter that obscured the bird. It's comical to see them walk/run/waddle and every step they appear as if they will tip over.

The weather was warm with temps in the low 70s limiting hunting to a couple hours in the morning and another couple in the evening. That gave me time to do some gun and reloading components shopping which depleted my bank account some. Tomorrow highs in the 50s are predicted which I hope carries over to Sunday and beyond.

Water was scarce so I carried 4 liters on me. The larger ponds and streams had water but there was no puddles and trickles in the woods. That amount of water would get us through a couple hours as I water the dogs pretty heavily. With 3 dogs I would run one with the other two at heel. After 15-20 minutes I would swap out a fresh dog and rest the dog at heel. One can keep dogs pretty fresh doing this.

I'm looking forward to Sunday as I should be able to get out again. I should get in 2 1/2 days hunting. If the weather is cool that should mean full days.

I bumped 9 on the back 80 acres of our property in MI last weekend. No dog, just timber tramping. Hearing good numbers from others as well.

Heading to the Hayward WI area in about 2 weeks. Will report back!

reading these stories bring great memories and sadness as my oldest and (I think and some others) best grouse dog is dying, went to feed them and he had trouble standing.

That's my area. Lol

Good to hear numbers are up

How are the ticks this year?

Nice to hear they aee still surviving somewhere......

This was a FANTASTIC grouse area 30-35 years ago. They have been virtually extinct here for close to 20 years.

Hunters kept telling the GC there was a problem...Yet ignored them while our Grouse were getting close to winking out. It only took them around 17 of those 20 to acknowledge it was happening.

Pa has a habitat problem they told us..."No wait, we have good habitat", they finally said. Which tells me they didn't have any Wardens who knew anything about Ruffed Grouse. "No, now it is WNV." But hey, they were on top of increasing the number of Eagles and raptors, while bragging about it.

Make one wonder if SD would allow the same to happen to their State Bird.

SPOT FREAKING ON !!!!!!!!!!!!!

sadly..................

We used to have a lot of grouse here.

Unfortunately, with the reintroduction of coyotes and wolves, sadly, I have one seen a grand total of ONE grouse in the last 15 years.

But, the state always knows better than you.

It took them a decade to admit that we had black bear. And according to them, we don't have mountain lions either (uh, yeah we do).

If here is Pa....

How many Mountain Lions have been shot in Pa when 800,000 hunters have been out on the opening day of Deer season? Some think Bigfoot is out there also.

I'm not a big GC fan anymore, but they didn't introduce Coyotes. Yes, Coyotes were trapped that had GC ear tags, but the GC had trapped them previously and tagged and released them. Reason was to be able to monitor exactly how far they have gained inroads.

Wolves???? You are telling us the Pa GC has reintroduced Wolves into Pa? They couldn't cover that one up...The tree huggers would be shouting it from the hilltops.

I could find more than one Grouse in Pa in 15 years by walking backward thru the woods with my ears plugged.

In all honesty...........we can't.

I've been putting a bear gang together since 2003 or 2004. We average 10-18 guys depending on the year. We pound the very same types of habitats you'd walk if you had a dog and a shotgun for grouse. At the end of the day, EVERY YEAR......... I specifically ask the entire group if anyone saw a grouse. In all those 18 or 19 years, we are at a grand total of ZERO grouse seen. That's a WHOLE LOT of man hours in good habitat to have never flushed a single grouse.

In the mid-80's three of us would take a few hour walk with an American Cocker and have 20-30 flushes or more...........

Well I could most likely go out for a couple days and get one up...With good legs, some serious Grouse hunters I know here are flushing 3 to 5 a day on average. Less than one an hour for time spent.

"3 to 5" used to be the same grapevine tangle................

Sad.

Most out of one tangle I had was 7....40 flushes...with some refreshes...was not uncommon.

Very similar experiences here................35 years ago.

In our small block of "home turf" (about a section) there were TWO woodlots named "(landowner name)'s Grouse Woods" because it was a done deal. You walked through those two woodlots..........grouse were coming up. Period.

Ruffed Grouse have been decent this year in Montana. I don't keep track of bird numbers, just the ones I shoot. I have gotten quite a few this year, mostly with a Burgess wrist slide action 12 gauge with 2 inch shells. I can stuff 7 of those short shells in the magazine and shoot all day...

Nice pics and a cool shotgun Shrap..mb

Thanks, I have shot so many grouse this fall, I’m afraid I’m going to wear it out…

Singing the blues this morning...

Hunted from the wife's cabin the last few days, can hunt both MN and WI from there. Was able to shoot 18 ruffs and brought home my possession limit of woodcock. The dogs were tuckered out, my buddy's dog is beginning to catch on to what it is supposed to do. I was able to shoot 4 grouse and all the woodcock over its points. A fair number of leaves were still on the trees making it somewhat hard to see the birds. The leaves are likely to fall a lot faster, had a hard frost and two days of winds up to 20 mph. This is the last week I have my buddy's dog, he will be home Friday in time for the pheasant opener. I'll probably head back to the woods, there seems to be more grouse and some of the highest pheasant counts in the state are less than a half hour away. There are even pheasants a half mile down the road from the cabin which may get a little attention from my Aussie/pit mix. He is a pretty good flusher and retriever though he is a lttle hard mouthed.

Is anyone having any luck seeing birds in Maine this year. Buddy of mine rode a lot of miles on a 4-wheeler couple weeks ago and saw two grouse. One run over on the highway and one on a trail. I remember when there was lots of birds here in NW NC but we have lots of turkeys now and almost no Grouse.

God Bless, Louis

That is one very cool shotgun! You know how to use it too. Do you have a picture with the action open?

It's a Montana thing....However, ask him how many were flying when they were shot. Hitting setup beer cans takes little know how. And even less skill.

Will agree the shotgun is cool!!!!

My guess is regardless of how or where I shoot grouse, I would probably beat you with a shotgun in any discipline.

Shame we will never be able to give you the opportunity to place a bet on the outcome....I would be more than willing to give you the opportunity to prove it. However, if you are ever in Pa and have the desire....send me a PM. I can easily lead us to the shooting fields.

That is a very interesting design. Wonder why they came up with this instead of the tried and true designs. Thanks for the picture, you have some great firearms. 👍

Actually when you think about that time of firearm inventions, most everything was still in the experimental stages. This particular gun was designed by Andrew Burgess who worked with Colt, Marlin, Eli Whitney, and several others in the gun industry patenting many innovations which are still used today. Patents were in leveraction and other repeating firearms.

It is also interesting to note that Andrew Burgess and his brother both did a lot of the photography during the Civil War for Matthew Brady. Many of the pictures you see in the archives of the Civil War were taken by Andrew and his brother. Another note worthy thing is the picture of Abraham Lincoln on the five dollar bill is credited to Andrew Burgess when he was doing photography for Matthew Brady in the field as well as in the studio.

Hunted two full days near Hayward, WI this past weekend. Warm and dry as dust. Dogs had trouble getting scent. We hunted in t-shirts from mid-morning on. Bumped 30 birds on Saturday; 14 on Sunday. Didn't get shots at most....came home with six. Oddly we did not flush any woodcock. Possibly the local population migrated south with the cold front last week, and the front coming this week will hopefully bring down the birds from Canada. Ticks weren't bad, we did each find one or two crawling on us the second day.