Lets here some good dog stories as well.
Can we attach pictures in this forum now?
Upland/Small Game
Grouse Reports ! ! !
9/12/03 @ 11:53 AM
Displaying 60 to 69 of 2,602 posts
Bird Boy, in Oneida county we have been seeing a few birds all winter while out walking the dogs. Usually they’re in the trees eating buds. There is an ice crust near the ground but I don’t think that affects them to much because they’re mainly bud eaters once snow cover arrives. Deep snow for snow roosting didnot
arrive til late Feb but it was a relatively mild winter temp wise. Less than 20 subzero nights this winter. We still have over 20” snow in the woods. By mid April they should start drumming. I go w/ a friend and do the drumming survey every year in our area. He has been doing it for 25+ years and that particular survey has been done since the 1960’s.
Last year there were a pretty good # of birds around. The low numbers in the ten year cycle seemed to be in the 0,1,2 years and then start to rebound. Although I have read articles that question that cycle.
arrive til late Feb but it was a relatively mild winter temp wise. Less than 20 subzero nights this winter. We still have over 20” snow in the woods. By mid April they should start drumming. I go w/ a friend and do the drumming survey every year in our area. He has been doing it for 25+ years and that particular survey has been done since the 1960’s.
Last year there were a pretty good # of birds around. The low numbers in the ten year cycle seemed to be in the 0,1,2 years and then start to rebound. Although I have read articles that question that cycle.
Grace youre bringing up a timely point. On dec 28th the snow up north took a beating, melted some then froze hard. Not good for the birds. Will be OK if we have a good winter but the way this rollercoaster weather is panning out I expect a lot of freeze/thaw cycling this winter. Hoping I am wrong.
My first experience of N WI grouse hunting was in 89 it was exactly like this video birds absolutely everywhere. Bird numbers stayed really good until the next down cycle and the following peaks have never seemed to be as high. I also forget which year but there was an ice storm that put a substantial glaze on top of the snow tons of birds died trying to crash in the snow to roost. YOu could see birds just laying on the ice. For a couple of years you had to get north or south of the ice band to find decent numbers.
River.
I’ve had maybe two days like that in 20 years. The last time was 2017 in Chequamegon. Temps dropped like 40 degrees that morning I walked in. The leaves seemed to all come down at once. I heard/saw more than 40 grouse in about two hours. Bagged four grouse and a woodcock before I ran out of shells. I only brought 12. On the two mile walk back out, I kicked up another 20 or so. I went back to the same spot two days later and flushed a single bird in about three hours of hiking.
Does any one hunt this easy? Ive never hunted like this. What are other peoples experiences?
Displaying 60 to 69 of 2,602 posts
