Grouse Reports ! ! !

Brown phase birds are more common in the southern parts of their range, gray predominates in the north. Not sure of the genetics behind it but both can come out of the same brood. Both gray and brown phased birds are common in Wisconsin. I hunt the central part of the state as well and would say its probably 50/50. Not uncommon to get a split phase either (characteristics of both). There's also a gray variant known as a silver phase. I've only seen one but its a particularly nice looking bird.

cutting wood and bowhunting last and this week in southcentral U.P. saw at least a dozen and a half birds. Flushed one covey of 10 looking for scrapes and when I finally decided to carry the gun one afternoon with dad we put up 5 birds with only 1 marginal shot that I missed. Lot's of birds around but they're hanging in the edges of the thick tamarack which isn't offering many shots.

Hunted in NW end of the U.P. end of last week. Lots of flushes with good success. Found that birds tend to covy up later in the season and saw very few singles. A few covies had 6-7 birds found them near old apple orchards, edges of transitions and never too far from water.Mixtures of aspen, with some conifers sprinkled in was good.

hunted langlade area yesterday for 5 hours. Only 3 grouse flushed, and 2 woodcocks. I should have killed a grouse and both woodcocks, but missed them.

ticks were unreal - even with lots of "off" on, was picking them off all day, sometimes 2-3 at a time. covered dog with spray and frontline. only found one on him so far.

I was born and raised in the northwoods and last year was the first time I had ever heard fall drumming. Thought that was a spring mating thing.

I just cleaned the birds from the previous post. I thought it would be nice to post this picture. I have always been told that feather color variation is somewhat regional. These birds came out of the same popple slashing in central Wisconsin. If anyone knows more about the color differences I would like to here about it.

Also I have heard more fall drumming this year than ever before. Anyone else observe the same?

Hunted for aoput 2 hrs today. What a great day to be in the woods. Had 4 points on Grouse, bagged two. 6 points on woodcock. Shot at 2 bagged 1.

Dogs are happy.

Tromped around DMU49A on Saturday.

Nobody else to be seen for miles.

Nobody goes hunting anymore, I guess.

Flushed one grouse and one woodcock.

Took the woodcock home for dinner.

Sawyer/Ashland Co. last weekend. Find the thornapples find the birds. Ended up with 9 after two days. Very few anywhere else in our area. Probably 30-40 flushes, 90% thornapples. Tough shooting.

Managed to get one grouse, 2 woodcock, a snipe and a woodduck in sawyer county. This was my second time going grouse hunting. Flushed a lot less grouse than two years ago but flushed a lot more wood cock. We had about 30 flushes in two days, a lot were repeat birds that we followed. Me and my buddy fired probably 10-15 shots. Found all the grouse in a low lying gully filled with pine trees. Nothing up on the ridges this year. Lots of birds were "paired" if we flushed one we would stand there for a few minutes and another would flush near by. Is this normal? Only had my long barreled mod choked duck gun which made for some though shooting.

Went out for a few hours on Friday. got three grouse and three woodcock. papal and evergreen mix. The pic is not the best its hard to take a pic with the dog and birds when the camera is on the truck tailgate with the timer on.

Just returned from hunting in Iron, Price, Vilas and Oneida counties. Moved a good number of birds over four days but only had shots at 4 plus one woodie. Really frustrating. My buddy flushed 5 birds at once on two occasions in Fifield and Mercer and came up empty on both. Worst part is that I watched him empty his gun both times as the birds flushed right in front of him one after the other while I stood out of range. Seemed like every time I got a good look, he was in between me and the bird so I pulled up on a ton of shots while he looked in the opposite direction or fumbled with the safety on his new gun. Then he'd see a bird flush on my side of the cover that I completely could not see. It was tough but I managed 3 grouse and a woodie. The dogs were amazing. Wind and rain kept the birds quiet on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday and Saturday were much better.

My dog decided to tangle with a porcupine in Boulder Junction on Wednesday. Got about 40 quills out of her and she was still hunting hard four hours later. Then she met another one in Mercer on Saturday. Only two quills this time. I guess she learned her lesson.

The dogs were great and we had a blast hanging out in the Northwoods just like every year.

Good luck everyone.

Tromped around Marinette & Oconto Counties 10/10/11 to 10/15/11.

Started out pretty well 10/10/11 flushed 5, shot at three, killed 2 (5-3-2).

10/11/11 2-2-0

10/12/11 2-0-0

10/13/11 2-1-0

10/14/11 2-0-0

10/15/11 2-0-0

Sure is tough without a dog.

Bird #1 was packed with little purple berries.

Bird #2 was packed with grasshoppers.

Mighty tasty dinner while watching the Packer game.

Spent 4 days in Bayfield county fighting the wind and vast area's of old woods. Managed to find a decent number of grouse and woodcock in everything from tags to blow downs in older woods. Had the most success bushwacken' on edges of swamps with mixed cover.

The woods were so loud with all the wind that you couldn't hear flushes outside of 20', so I'm guessing we ran across a lot more birds that we never heard/saw based on how many times the dogs were birdy...

Did some scouting around Taylor County this last weekend. Saw three grouse and 1 woodcock but we were mainly out scouting for deer and didn't work the better birdy areas. Lots of non-residents including plates from Tenn., Texas and Arkansas. Hope those guys had enough flushes to make it worth the drive. Ratoney