Grouse

[TheGuy]

Anyone still hunting grouse? How has it been?

[Northland Sportsman]

I saw a lot of grouse when I was out deer hunting and plan to try and get some of them in the near future. I flushed or watched them run around under my stand just wishing I had a shotgun instead of a rifle. I think there are still good numbers out there for those who hunt in the cold. Just my thoughts though.

[Riverratpete]

Headed out perhaps for the last time this Sat. Can't quite put the gun away just yet and the ice isn't quite ready to go. Be nice to have a couple for a meal around the holidays with some wild rice and nice bottle of wine.

[TheGuy]

Any one still grouse hunting?

[Websta24]

I have seen only two Grouse the entire season and one of those was in a State Park. We can only hope for adequate snow this winter so they can aviod predation and keep warm. A decent spring for the ground nesters would be nice as well.

[protrapper]

Shot one the other afternoon. There was two together, as usal at this time of year. It was very small in size. We had a wet and cold spring. The grouse either had a second brood or hatched late. I have seen lots of small grouse in December. They are in great shape and in good cover just a little behind in size for this time of year.

[Matt Breuer]

I have not been out targeting them, but I did shoot one on Monday while out checking ice in the area, nice bonus!

There isn't enough snow yet, I'll hit 'er hard in a week or so. Usually from X-mas 'til the last day is when I do the best in the Winter. We're going on 4 years with a bird for the table on the last day, hopefully we can continue the tradition!

As for size, I've only seen maybe 3 young birds all season. Our broods were severely hurt I think due to the rain this Spring.

[The Grebe]

We went up to the McGrath/McGregor area today, Solena management area to be exact.

Beautiful day for hunting! It was great, 2 of my sons had the day off work and we took advantage of it!

I have to tell you, I have never been in the winter forest that was so devoid of wildlife! We hunted every type of cover we could think of and the dog worked himself ragged!

We seen no Grouse, no rabbits, no squirrels, not one snowshoe rabbit trail, no droppings, no red rabbit pee spots, no Grouse tracks, maybe 2 sets of old deer tracks in the snow, a Bluejay, a Chickadee and a couple of hawks.

We tromped all over, high and low, Poplars, Aspens, edges, old growth, pines, swamp, low brush and after putting on about 362 miles of walking, stumbling upon one deer carcass and seeing about a million Wolf, Coyote and Fox tracks over the whole area, we pulled the plug and went down by the Mille Lacs wildlife managment area.

We started cutting sign immediately, deer, rabbit and all kinds of other little woodland critters. We even got a couple of shots at a couple of Grouse we got up, huge birds,

and sad to say, their flying was better then our shooting and they are still up there, no worse for wear.