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MN grouse drumming count reveals 29% drop for 2018! After last year's high count, (and expectations) does this really mean anything? Drumming counts give some indication of actively breeding males, maybe not such an accurate assessment numbers of hens and their success at rearing chicks. Last year was OK, found a few. What do you think? I'm committed to go, year in, year out so it doesn't matter that much. I go for the love of it.

Chief

West Nile found in Michigan's UP. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I experienced fewer as well as smaller grouse this past season in the U.P.
Karl

My friend and hunting partner owns a good lot of land in some good grouse country. He lives there and keeps an eye out for birds. Initial reports have been promising. Last summer his observations ran counter to the rosy MNDNR drumming count report. He was correct, birds were scarce, we hunted hard to get a few. I was there for one week in mid October, I'm sure that more time would have found some better days. He generally will shoot a sobering amount of grouse in a season, not so last year. Hope springs eternal!

So - - quit killing them for a while and let them recover

A statement that underscores just how little you grasp on the subject of Ruffed Grouse. 90% of a given population of Ruffed Grouse will die in a year, whether they are hunted, or not. Virtually all of them die a violent death. The population of grouse cycles up and down in a ten year span, without regards to hunting, indeed, the cycle is not at all understood, but, what is understood is that hunting has zero impact upon it.
If you are actually interested in the ecology, intead of making uninformed, feel good commentary, I'd suggest you begin with the study and writings of Gordon Gullion.

To the OP, I would suggest that as I have hunted grouse the past 40 seasons, grouse are literally where you find them. Last years reports from the DNR were glowing, but, in the north western areas I hunted, it was a bust. I had far more success hunting closer to home on short afternoon hunts, of an hour or two in duration. I would have found no birds without my dog. The birds I killed were all this years birds, BUT, in any given year, good or poor, I kill first year birds more frequently.
I do not believe the birds will recover from the border to border spring flooding that occured two seasons past, and that includes pheasants and grouse. The Dakotas suffered severe drought last year, and I'm not betting on good populations of pheasants or prarie grouse, there, either.

I will hunt. That is a given.

Best,
Ted

Wonko, Ted beat me to it. The one factor that has stood the test of time is that, given good habitat, hunting has little or no impact on grouse populations, MN has mucho good habitat for grouse. If anything successful heavy hunting would likely impact predators, especially avian predators.

Ted, I agree, as I stated given more time I'm sure I would have found birds. A week in one area is not a good indicator of numbers overall. A bright spot is the two weeks I spent around my old home produced surprisingly good pheasant hunting, considering the reports were gloomy. The key there was waiting until the corn was out,(late) the weather was dismal. The hunting was the best I've had there in a while. I will hunt regardless.
Chief

Ted,

Do you know if the source of information indicating hunting has no effect on overall numbers took into consideration the numbers of grouse killed by road hunters as opposed to those took on the wing?

I have no idea if it does or doesn't, just wondering if the different "styles" of hunting them was considerred.

A group of my hunting buddies and I were on a plane to Mexico to bird hunt. We were seated together and were talking about the collapse of the bobwhite quail population in the South.

As we talked about how many coveys we had previously found on our respective hunting grounds and how many we'd bag in a day, a little woman who was unfortunately seated among us must have had enough of it.

She shut down the conversation by observing pointedly that she knew exactly why our bird population had disappeared; we had Shot'em all!...Geo

The only way to test the impact of hunting is to simply not do it and observe the results. Has that been done?
I'm not condemning hunting, I could GAF what all you kill or why. People pay bags of $ to kill pen raised pheasant. I find that nothing less than inane! but I cannot work up any objection. Rationalizing hunting in the 21stCentury beyond some game management issues is ridiculous. Are the grouse overburdening their habitat? A threat to human populations?
Please, spare me. Kill what you want, glory in the boldness of the hunt, and eat whatever is left after the blasting in good health.