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| Deer River MN Woodcock |
We left the Twin Cities Saturday morning and made the drive to the Deer River, MN area. By the time we hit the woods it was 1 PM and it was already warming up.
Tina, the 14 yr old, got the first spot. It is a shorter hunt and we have had luck at this spot in the past. The cover was thicker this year than in the past and she had some issues getting through the tall grass in the trail. We worked the area for 40 minutes but didn’t move anything.
Tasha got the next area. This spot is one of our two favorites. As we went down the second set of trails she gave me a flash point and a grouse took off out of a tree. It surprised me so much I didn’t even get a shot off. A few minutes later I heard her bell stop and then a grouse flushed. As it cleared the woods it was coming right at me down the trail. I spun around as it passed me and took a shot but it just kept going. It was in the mid 60’s and next to no breeze so I wasn’t going to get too upset with a bumped bird. I’m hoping that it won’t continue. As we went down the trail we had a wild flush that again came from a tree. arrgg, no shot taken again. The next section of trail was flooded out so we tried to work our way around it but ended up looping back to the original trail. We went to an area that was lower but not too wet and ended up moving two woodcock. One was a nice point but no shot and the other was another bumped bird. We wrapped up this area after about 90 minutes and took a break to head to the cabin and get checked in.
I’ve rented the cabin for the month of October and will come and go over some long weekends. It is a bit expensive but this lets me leave a fair amount of gear at the cabin between hunts. Two main drawbacks though. No internet. No wifi at all and fairly slow mobile hot spot. It is good enough for email but no streaming. The second drawback is that after this year they won’t allow dogs any longer. We got checked in, got the dogs plenty of water, and unloaded some of our gear.
We made it back out to the woods with about 2 hours of light left. We went back to the 2nd spot that we had hunted and I took Tina out first again. We worked a great looking section of trail. This was much easier walking and the cover has grown nicely since being clear cut a few years ago. She got birdy a few times but we didn’t move any thing. Tasha got the call to close out the day. We ended up moving 4 more grouse 2 of which came out of trees. She did get a nice point on 2 woodcock. I didn’t get a shot off at the first one but the second one was a nice point and when I stepped into the woods it flushed and went right down the trail and I hit it on a nice going away shot.
We got out of the woods with a little light left. We ended up moving 7 grouse and 4 woodcock for the day. It was great to see birds even if we didn’t do too much shooting.
Ruffed grouse drumming counts were down across most of the bird’s range, according to the annual survey conducted by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
“This decrease was not unexpected because the ruffed grouse population is still in the declining phase of its 10-year cycle,” said Charlotte Roy, DNR grouse biologist. “Drum counts peaked most recently in 2009.”
Drumming counts dropped from 1.1 to 0.9 per stop in the northeast, which is the forest bird’s core range in Minnesota. Counts in the northwest declined from 0.9 in 2012 to 0.7 drums per stop in 2013. Drumming counts did not change significantly in the central hardwoods or southeast, with an average of 0.9 and 0.4 drums per stop, respectively.
Ruffed grouse populations, which tend to rise and fall on a 10-year cycle, are surveyed by counting the number of male ruffed grouse heard drumming on established routes throughout the state’s forested regions. Drumming counts are an indicator of the ruffed grouse breeding population.
This year, observers recorded 0.9 drums per stop statewide. The averages during 2011 and 2012 were 1.7 and 1.0 drums per stop, respectively. Counts vary from about 0.8 drums per stop during years of low grouse abundance to about 1.9 during years of high abundance.
The number of birds present during the fall hunting season also depends upon nesting success and chick survival during the spring and summer. Drumming did occur later this year because of the late spring, suggesting that nesting likely occurred later than normal.
“Later nesting would have pushed the hatch out a bit, hopefully beyond the spring rains,” Roy said. “Time will tell if that occurred and the impact on production.”
Minnesota frequently is the nation’s top ruffed grouse producer. On average, 115,000 hunters harvest 545,000 ruffed grouse in the state each year, making it the state’s most popular game bird. During the peak years of 1971 and 1989, hunters harvested more than 1 million ruffed grouse. Michigan and Wisconsin – which frequently field more hunters than Minnesota – round out the top three states in ruffed grouse harvest.
One reason for the Minnesota’s status as a top grouse producer is an abundance of aspen and other ruffed grouse habitat, much of it located on county, state and national forests where public hunting is allowed. An estimated 11.5 million of the state’s 16.3 million acres of forest are grouse habitat.
For the past 64 years, DNR biologists have monitored ruffed grouse populations. This year,
DNR staff and cooperators from 14 organizations surveyed 117 routes across the state.
Sharp-tailed grouse counts decrease slightly
Sharp-tailed grouse counts in the northwest, the bird’s primary range in Minnesota, were similar to 2012. Counts in the east-central region declined significantly.
Observers look for male sharptails displaying on traditional mating areas, called leks or dancing grounds.
Despite several years of declining numbers, this year’s statewide average of 9.2 grouse counted per dancing ground was similar to the long-term average since 1980. The 2009 average of 13.6 was as high as during any year since 1980. During the last 25 years, the sharp-tailed grouse index has been as low as seven birds counted per dancing ground.
Overall, sharptail populations appear to have declined over the long term as a result of habitat deterioration. In recent years, the DNR has increased prescribed burning and shearing that keep trees from overtaking the open brush lands that sharp-tailed grouse need to thrive.
The DNR’s 2013 grouse survey report, which contains information on ruffed grouse and sharp-tailed grouse, is available online.
Original MN DNR article
More Ruffed Grouse information RuffedGrouseHunter.com
