outdoors

It's way too early to call this year's ruffed grouse season a bust -- the best hunting always occurs after the leaves have fallen.

But many reports from opening weekend were less than encouraging.

"You could call it spotty,'' said Ted Dick, grouse specialist with the Department of Natural Resources. "We have had some good reports, but we've also had our share of pretty bad reports.''

The bad reports are surprising because the spring drumming counts showed the birds should still be at peak population levels. But those counts of adult male birds don't reflect nesting success, or failure, later in the spring. A cool, wet spring could have hurt grouse reproduction.

"It's too bad it wasn't better,'' Dick said. "But you can't judge the season by that first weekend. I'm telling people not give up yet. It will get better.''

Generally, hunters found more birds farther north.

Here's the report from conservation officers:

Hunters flushed lots of birds near Cook, but saw and shot few. Near Remer, only a few hunters had bagged birds, reported conservation officer Larry Francis.

At Tower, hunters had poor hunting, with mostly adult birds in the bag. At Aurora, hunters averaged one to two birds. And in the Grand Marais area on the North Shore, officer Darin Fagerman reported fewer hunters this year, "and even fewer birds in the bag.''

At Cromwell, hunters reported poor to fair action. And in the Duluth area, "many hunters were grumbling about the seeming low numbers of grouse,'' reported officer Randy Hanzal. However, Hanzal said he's seen numerous birds. "If you don't find them at first, keep moving,'' he suggested.

Grouse hunting was reported poor near Brainerd and Pequot Lakes.

The state's archery deer harvest was down about 11 percent for the first five days of the season, but that doesn't mean hunters won't kill around 22,000 deer for the season, as they did last year. As of last week, hunters had bagged 1,915 deer compared to 2,161 deer the same time last year.

"I am not concerned about the archery harvest numbers at this point,'' said Marrett Grund, DNR deer researcher at Madelia. "It is such a long season that we can easily catch up to last season's archery harvest within the next few weeks. I fully expect archers will have excellent hunting opportunities throughout this hunting season, particularly when the crops start to get harvested and the early rut begins.''

The DNR is considering consolidating the state's 77 spring turkey permit areas into just nine areas, and hunters can offer their opinions through Oct. 10. "Our turkey populations are doing exceptionally well and we no longer have a need to manage turkey on such a small scale," said Bill Penning, farmland wildlife program leader. "These changes will provide additional flexibility and opportunity to hunters." Hunters can see a map of the proposed turkey permit areas, and fill out an online survey, at www.startribune.com/a695. You can also email comments to wildlife.dnr@state.mn.us. The DNR will make a decision by early November.

 Errant arrow

And then there was the archery deer hunter near Wabasha who got bored and released an arrow at a squirrel. His broadhead arrow landed in the middle of a state forest campground. "Luckily there were no injuries or damage,'' reported conservation officer Scott Moran. The hunter was reminded -- with a citation -- about knowing what is behind your target, and that hunters need a small game license to hunt squirrels.

Two early goose season hunters were found hunting over water last week in the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area near Forest Lake. The problem: It's one of the few areas in the state where it's illegal to hunt geese over water in September. "When the hunters were checked, they did say it seemed a little strange that the access to the south pool was empty,'' reported conservation officer Todd Langevin. He explained why they had the area to themselves -- and issued a citation and warning. Besides Carlos Avery, early-season goose hunters also can't hunt over water at Swan Lake, the northwest goose zone and the Ocheda Lake Game Refuge.

A rainbow trout will be featured on the 2012 Minnesota Trout and Salmon Stamp. The painting, by Nicholas T. Markell of Hugo, was chosen as the winning design from among 17 entries in the annual stamp contest.

Squirrel hunters have had mixed success. Hunters near La Crescent in southeastern Minnesota averaged four or more squirrels last weekend, and many had their seven-squirrel limits. But near Plainview, they averaged one to three squirrels. Poor hunting was reported near Brainerd.