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!
By Dave Hurteau
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.
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.
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.
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.
Read the full BradfordEra article
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.
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:
For complete survey results, visit the DNR’s Wisconsin Wildlife Reports webpage.
For more information regarding grouse hunting or managing habitat for ruffed grouse in Wisconsin, visit the DNR’s Ruffed Grouse Hunting webpage.
