Follow along with onX's own, Ben Brettingen, as he explains the tools and methods he uses within the hunt app to find spots to hunt Ruffed Grouse and Woodcock. Learn what habitat types to look for, what layers are most useful to have on, how to plan your routes, how to mark potential spots and organize them so no time is wasted, and much more!
Ruffed grouse hunting grew up in 19th
century New England, so naturally it can be a bit of a prude. So
genteel in certain circles, so neatly wrapped in tradition and style, it
must seem to some hunters—especially new and/or young ones—the domain
of fuddy-duddies and dandies.
Don’t believe it. (I, for one, am too
ill-bred to be a fuddy-duddy and way too badly dressed to be a dandy.)
The truth is, getting into grouse is easy and anything but exclusive.
All you really need is a reliable shotgun and a pair of reliable legs.
You don’t need tweeds, or an English-made double, or even a bird dog.
Just grab your gun and go…and you’ll find the fastest, funnest, most
wonderfully frustrating shotgunning in the uplands.
How to Find Ruffed Grouse
There are grouse hunters who would
rather share the same strand of dental floss with you than their best
grouse cover. Good habitat is the secret. You just won’t find many birds
in marginal habitat. On the other hand, anyone can flush grouse in good
habitat. So, it’s a good idea to find some.
Ruffed grouse prefer the
early-successional forest cover associated with abandoned farmland,
regenerating clear-cuts, burns, strip-mines, and the like. This includes
the classic covers that grouse hunters dream of: abandoned apple
orchards and old pastures overrun by birch and bramble, shimmering aspen
groves and dank alder runs, stone walls and cedar fences. But grouse
live here (and in less-idyllic places) for unromantic reasons. Knowing
of few of them can help you pin down the best haunts.
Locate the Best Grouse Foods
One of the most limiting factors to
good grouse habitat is the availability of winter food. Fall is a feast:
Apples, clover, wild strawberry, wild grape, cherry, dogwood,
thornapple, mountain ash, and greenbrier are just a few favorites–and
well worth the hunter’s attention. But for most grouse (except in parts
of the southeast where they continue to feed on the ground), winter
brings a strict diet of buds and catkins. Mostly, aspens.
It’s no fluke that the range of our
most widely distributed tree closely mirrors that of our most widely
distributed nonmigratory gamebird. Aspens are grouse magnets, primarily
because the buds and catkins of male quaking aspen and bigtooth aspen
(also known as popple or poplar) provide the majority of grouse with
their single most important winter and early spring food source.
So keep your eye on the aspens: their
white trunks gleam in the fall sun, and their yellow leaves shake and
shimmer, like so many tiny hands waving you in the right direction.
Where aspens are scarce or absent,
important winter foods include the buds and catkins of apple, alder,
birch, black cottonwood, cherry, ironwood, willow, and cedar.
Locate the Best Grouse Cover
Whether it’s a dense grove of
wrist-thick aspens, a thornapple thicket, or a stand of young conifers,
grouse need thick stuff to thwart avian predators, their biggest threat.
If while hunting a given area you do not at least occasionally think,
Why do I torture myself walking through this stuff? you may in the wrong
place.
Adult grouse are full-time residents
of small home ranges (typically between 10 and 40 acres), within which
they must meet all their needs. Consequently, every good grouse cover,
without exception, is a place where different habitat characteristics
mingle: edges.
Look for the obvious edges associated
with streams, logging roads, fields, and tree groves of different
species and ages. But look also for subtle edges: where a small cluster
of pines, even a pair of apple trees, or a single blowdown breaks up the
dominant cover. And look especially for multiple edges. Good covers
always have a few isolated hotspots, and these are invariably places
where several edges meet.
MOUNT JEWETT — The. Ruffed Grouse Society announced it will offer its
popular Women’s Introduction to Wingshooting Program at the Mount
Jewett Sportsmen’s Club on July 20 and 21 and August 24 and 25.
Women’s
Introduction to Wingshooting is a course for women and taught by women.
On both Saturdays, the course starts at noon and ends at 4 p.m. On both
Sundays, the course starts at 10 a.m. and ends at 2 p.m.
Register by contacting bjmf989@gmail.com. Attendance is required for both weekends to graduate from the program. Lodging is available, if needed, but is limited.
A hunt will be offered to the graduates Sept. 8 at a nearby sportsmen’s club.
No knowledge of shooting is required.
“We
pride ourselves on helping a woman who has never even held a shotgun
before learn how to become a wingshooter,” says Sue McClelland of
Smethport, one of the instructors. “And owning a shotgun is not
necessary; we have shotguns that the attendees can try for size and then
use during the program. When you finish this training you can go on and
shoot at targets for fun or hunt your choice of birds.” You must
register to attend this course, and it is on a first come, first served
registration basis. “We only take 20 women into the program each year so
we can maintain the quality,” said Maureen McDonald of Coudersport,
another instructor.
MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) released the results of its annual Roadside Ruffed Grouse Drumming Survey.
The survey measured ruffed grouse drumming activity heard along
roadsides throughout Wisconsin this spring and showed a 57% increase in
statewide drumming activity compared to 2023.
Several agencies and groups, including the DNR, U.S. Forest Service,
tribal partners and volunteers, collected the data via roadside surveys
of breeding grouse.
"The late spring and summer of 2023 were abnormally dry, which
resulted in prime nesting and brooding conditions for ruffed grouse.
This is likely the most influential factor explaining the increase in
the number of drumming grouse this year,” said Alaina Roth, DNR ruffed
grouse specialist. “We are also likely entering the ‘up’ phase of our
10-year population cycle, which may be an influencing factor, too.”
Ruffed grouse typically follow a 10-year population cycle, with peaks
occurring in years that end in 0, 1 or 9. The surveys indicate ruffed
grouse in Wisconsin are starting to enter the more populous phase of the
abundance cycle. The next peak is anticipated to occur in 2029, 2030 or
2031.
Ruffed grouse drumming survey results show an increase in drumming abundance this year.Wisconsin DNR
Data is not available for 2020, so it is unknown whether 2019 or 2020
was the high point in the cycle, but drumming numbers appeared to wane
in the years immediately following 2020.
Since 2021, survey data has been organized and analyzed by ruffed
grouse priority areas to help monitor key populations across the state,
as defined in the Wisconsin Ruffed Grouse Management Plan 2020-2030.
The 2024 survey results for priority areas compared to 2023 showed:
A 41% increase in drumming in the Central priority area.
A 60% increase in drumming in the Northern priority area.
A 56% decrease in drumming in the Driftless priority area.