Mr. Brown: Minnesota seems to want to clear-cut everything anymore (to pay for tampons perhaps?). Many of my old haunts are in recovery from a recent logging event. It bothers me to lose a still-productive trail but I also have a few that have aged-out and are not as productive as they could be. I just hope to live long enough to see them all recover.
Small popples and birch are the rule here, rather than the exception. Jack pines abound as well (planted in the post war years here). If there is more perfect ruffed grouse cover somehwere else, I have yet to hear about it.
Lloyd, I was addressing the absence of woodcock, not grouse. We were still getting woodcock in NE Iowa long after grouse were mostly a memory due to habitat loss. But you may be too far west for a major migration route. If so, or if you don't have other habitat types that appeal to woodcock, either of those might explain why you hardly ever see them. They do migrate along the Nebraska-Iowa border. Northern Minnesota certainly has woodcock further east. They always show up in the bag of the Ruffed Grouse/Woodcock Society's National Hunt over around Grand Rapids. Where I live in North Central Wisconsin, if grouse numbers are low, we can usually rely on woodcock until they've all gone south to provide some action. Some years, depending on weather, they're still around after the woodcock season has closed.
Last edited by L. Brown; 10/03/24 07:12 AM.
