doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ruffed Grouse and Woodcock hunting-MN.

Ed thanks for the link. Bobby

bobby, i am a retired ny and later pa grouse hunter...huntable numbers of birds disappeared in ny in the 1980's...same thing happened in pa in the 1990's...the west nile virus may be the factor that causes the ruffed grouse to be added to the endangered species list...

responsible hunters should stop killing birds until their populations recover...

I cannot imagine how West Nile Virus can kill Corvids and they end up in a pile, unless somebody piled them, but this is what a pile of dead Corvids looks like, in case you ever do run across one. Courtesy of L C Smith.





postscript: They don't always die from "West Nile" ............... but the end result, as far as the crow is concerned, is the same.

Regards, SRH

Stan,
I assume it happens under a tree the crows have roosted in as a group for the night, and a few, or, all, worst case situation, members don't survive until morning.
Crows are migratory, and do roost in family (and, larger) groups in trees for the night. Stressed birds might die in a group.

Best,
Ted

Yet another good ruffed grouse video. Ed, my thanks also for the 1st one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vERkh23mp64

This is a disappointing thread as I am about to head out to grouse hunt the Tamarac NWR & environs for a week with some friends. We had already switched off our normal SD pheasant hunt to MN on the strength of the drumming reports. I think we will have to make the most of it at this point.

Owenjj3: I am sorry to hear that, and I'll bet you weren't alone on your decision to go to Al Franken-land because of the 57% pronouncement. I'm guessing that you will still see (& kill, if you're serious) birds and have fun with your friends in those beautiful deciduous woods. It just won't be "as advertised".

Did you happen to see my "Validity of Population Estimates" post here?

Drumming males can't beat Mother Nature. Cold Springs, wet periods at nesting or worse a sudden cold snap plays merry Hell with bird numbers. I've seen entire hatches of quail lost in just one bad day. Second nesting does occur but often with quail, it is smaller. Worse we often get a second nesting after a normal first nesting but we never got a third if the first was lost. So reports of early sign means nothing to me and need to be taken as more hype than fact.

Dustin, if you had experience longer than 18 years hunting CRP in Iowa, you would not refer to brome as "worthless". When CRP began in 1985, brome was mostly what was planted on our 2 million acres enrolled in the program. The pheasant harvest increased from 724,000 in 1984 (then an all-time low in Iowa) to over 1.4 million in 1987, mainly as a result of all those big grass fields. I'll readily admit that native prairie grasses in general are superior, but relatively few farmers were planting them then. Brome provides decent nesting cover (although it's not much for winter cover if there's more than a few inches of snow), although it needs to be managed--burned, cut, disked, whatever every few years--or it becomes matted underneath and of much less value. But we had a severe drought in Iowa in 1988, with virtually all the CRP fields cut for hay or grazed. The following year, the habitat was great.

We didn't start seeing a lot of native prairie grass until the CRP rules changed under the 96 Farm Bill and its use was emphasized. Unfortunately, for various reasons (mainly higher CRP rental rates in Iowa), those rules caused us to lose the majority of our "full field" CRP enrollment. Stream buffers planted in prairie grass replaced a lot of the lost acres, but they are of less value either for nesting or winter habitat--they can become "predator corridors"--than the big fields.

I guided nonresident pheasant hunters in Iowa from 1994-97. I stopped mainly because virtually all my big CRP fields, where my pointing dogs could produce well for the hunters, became soybean fields overnight. In terms of the number of pheasants produced, I'd trade all of Iowa's CRP prairie grass buffer strips for an equal acreage of full fields of properly managed brome in a heartbeat.