Grouse #'s looking good for this fall!

[thunderpout]

Well I dont know bout you guys but so far its been a pretty disapointing fall so far, nearly every outing I made to chase grouse around this year has been really soggy minus a day or two, and those few times the birds made me look like a rookie, Drummer the wonderdog is doing his end of the deal with flying colors, which is good... Man, at first my excuses were those darn green masses of leaves stayin in the trees, in fact I dont think I remember them staying up so dang long before!   Then that really soggy October...   Im lookin to get some payback here now that the leaves have finally dropped, and Deer days are over for me... hoping we get a late indian summer now!   

[Go Big Red!]

I haven't gotten a single one yet after being out 8 times.  Weather has been everything from wind and rain to sunny.  Very disappointed.

Yet I have heard and talked with others who cannot remember the last time they saw this many birds.  I just don't get it...   

[JohnWester]

where are you guys going... last weekend one morning I saw no less than 6 or 7 walking out from the deer stand, about 1 mile.

they are all over the place, best numbers since, well, 12 years at least?

[HD]

Numbers seem to be about the same by me. I went out a couple times already and only harvested a few birds. The way they were talking them up, they would be as thick as theives....but, doesn't seem to be the case around the farm. Still, it's great to be out in the woods just going for a stroll.

Hunter

[thunderpout]

Yeah John... I always see them when deer hunting... thats murphys law aint it?  I "saw" a bunch north of the Cass Lake area the one dry day I had, but the leaves were in the trees, and still green!  And that was the third weekend in October.... Im going back up there.  I hit four different areas in north central MN and saw birds, but not even close to the most Ive seen compared to good outings in the past... didnt make it (yet) to NW MN like I wanted to, I heard some good reports from that URL and north of there.... its a haul though.

[Go Big Red!]

We have gone to Hinckley area and further north to Squaw Lake and not one.  We have kicked up birds but not one has hit the ground.

[willy4003]

..

[thunderpout]

Awesome photo Willy!  Is that another trailcam shot or did you sneek up on him?

[willy4003]

..

[beeker]

i had pretty good luck before deer season... have a few new spots i plan to check out (found deer hunting) think I'm going to skip south dakota pheasant this year.. don't care to spend the money or burn the vacation at work.

[mahmoodmahi]

I have had an average year so far, decent numbers of birds (average maybe ten seen while hunting), but not spectacular. I have only been out near the hayward wis area, all my planned minnesota trips keep falling through, so I haven't put as much time in as I woud like. I have a question for some of the older guys on the forum, since I am in my mid twenties, and all my hunting buddies are too. We have all heard tons of stories about the insane numbers of grouse in MN and WI during the 70's and early 80's, from a whole host of differnt people (when everyone says the same thing then it usually isn't just a good old days story). I've heard of people shooting twenty birds on 40 acres in 4 hours, people who used to to limit out walking trails with .22s and crazy road hunting stories. So my question is what was differnt back the? Where there more clear cuts and less predators? I have called the DNR and not gotten any satifactory information, so does anyone have any idea why there used to be so many more grouse in Minnesota?

[HD]

I would have to say (don't wanna date myself) but, yup. I believe there were more birds back then. I'm not an expert on grouse, but I think...and this is just my opinion....That the large popular tree groves, are not as big as they used to be, cause of development...the increase of hunters since then and the cycle of the grouse themselves. Then, ya throw in the increase of preditors (nobody wanted to trap cause of the fur prices taking a crap, and the tree huggers giving ya greif for doing it)

Back then we could hunt a heck of a lot more areas than we can now.


Hunter

[deadeye]

mahmoodmahi,
You know that's a darn good question.  In fact, I believe except for deer, game in general was more abundent in the 60's and 70's than today.  I think Hunterdown hit on one of the main reasons... more area to hunt.  The two biggest changes have been large farms (farming without fence rows or groves) and fall plowing.  The first took away vast areas of cover and the second took away winter food.  When I grew up in the, well lets just say I did a fair amount of hunting in the 60's.  Back then you could basically hunt your way across a county without leaving a grove, woodlot, fence row, pond or brushy hill.  Try doing that today even if tresspassing was not an issue.  Anyway back to grouse.  First off my experience has been mostly on private land so my opinion may not be the norm.  I have hunted the same piece of land for the past 25 years and have a pretty good idea on grouse populations.  Funny thing is, there isn't all that much difference from year to year.  I do remember one year, I think 4 years ago, when it was tough to flush a grouse.  I remember we decided not to shoot any that year.  Most years you could flush 3-5 per hour of hunting.  Due to various reasons (flush scared me, flush too close, flush too far, flush too straight up, not ready for flush, gun not loaded, too much brush, too windy, you get the picture) I usually get about 1 of 9 birds I flush.  So I really never put a dent in the population.

[thunderpout]

Private land is affected by the grouse cycles,  but usually private land doesnt bottom out on the low end like most public land does cause it doesnt get pounded by hunters like public land... I aint that old.... but I have been grouse hunting in MN thru two/three cycles (25+ yrs) and yeah, there are always those pockets that you can find that will have a bunch of birds, BUT, during the peaks of the first two cycles, during my early brush busting days, I saw way more birds.... and that aint the ole "when I was young ya should have seen the birds... so thick the sky was black with em" BS.... its just fact.... when the DNR releases the drumming counts I think its a decent barometer of when the populations are increasing, but its a really inacurate way to compare peaks to peaks from past cycles... habitat changes from area to area alot quicker than the ten year cycles, and its not all development, its just that grouse are very habitat sensitive and they aint gonna be in the same areas every 5...10 years.  Maybe year to year, but things change.  Hey Deadeye... whether high #'s or low.... murphy's law definatly applies to grouse hunting doesnt it?   Grouse are reeaaly good at making " happen", and its been happening more than I like the last two years!

[wildlifeminnesota]

You mean one of these!! 

[wildlifeminnesota]

Or this one.