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Grouse sightings


Fowlmouth

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Has anyone seen or heard any grouse lately? September can't come soon enough, can't wait to get back out in the woods and chase some.

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Since the snow has melted more, quite a few grouse have been showing up. I think they had a very good winter with lots of roosting snow. The cycle is still on the low end and we will see what kind of spring we have for chick survival.

No matter what, the old 20 gauge will get to go for a walk this fall

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I hear ya on the snow roosting, I think that helped this winter. Only time will tell!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have been seeing some each time I have been up by willow river.

Good to see their numbers starting to come back.

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I was in Amery, WI for the opener on saturday and seen a grouse chillin' on the side of the road on my home. I'll be on the croix this saturday, always hear a few drumming along the river this time a year.

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I was at our cabin near Grand Marais on the 28th and there was over three feet of settled snow in the woods covering their drumming logs. I did happen upon a grouse. Most years they are drumming by late April, but not this year. I have heard them drum as early as mid April and as late as the first few days in June.

I can gauge the population by counting active drummers out our back door in the spring. I can typically pick out 5 different grouse drumming after a good year for them. Last year I only heard 3. Our hunting reflected this last fall, with fewer birds seen. We averaged walking about one hour to see one bird. Many years the average is 30-40 minutes per bird seen. During the last super cycle peak from 89 to 91 I was working, living and hunting in Grand Portage where it was not unusual to see well over 30 birds on a walk from the Partridge Falls or Cowboy's road to the Cascades cabin on the Pigeon River; along the ridge behind Hollow Rock Resort to the Reservation River; or behind Ryden's Border Store down to the lodge, among many other beautiful and un-hunted places.

I have also had wonderful times hunting around our homestead later in the 90s and though today with our children but the forest is changing pretty dramatically due to the significant decrease in logging activity. Many of the old coverts are mere shadows of their former glory as the dense wrist size poplars are now maturing. Sure there are still some birds in pockets here and there, along whatever edges that still exist, but I am beginning to wonder if I will ever see anywhere close to the number of birds seen in the past. There were moose everywhere as well, but not any more in any great number.

If you can hear a grouse drum, you can bet it is within 500 yards, or just over a quarter mile away. They typically drum every four minutes.

I often hear them drum certain days in the fall, typically around the fall dispersal as they mark their territory to young of the year interlopers.

Last fall the number of young birds was way down, presumably due to the wet cold spring. There was very little drumming in the fall. Lets hope for some warm and mostly dry weather for the hatch this year.

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Been hearing a few and seen some road side in the aitkin area.

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Years ending in 3 and 4 are often the bottom of the cycle. A good hatch can negate much of the bottom part of the cycle.

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I was out on Saturday in Aitkin County looking for WC to band. I moved a handful of woodcock. I didn't find any WC nests or chicks. However, I did move a few grouse and heard many drumming in the few hours I was out. I didn't really cover a lot of ground so i was pretty happy what I saw/heard in the few hours i had.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • leech~~
      Nope not me.  May want to go nextdoor and ask around?  
    • smurfy
      Looks to me like Leech brought his chair home!!😅😆
    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
      Black Bay had great ice before but a few spots near rockpiles where there were spots of open water. It looks like the weight of the snow has created a little lake in the middle of the bay.  
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
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