outdoors

IN PURSUIT OF GROUSE

In a blur, the ruffed grouse flushed from the side of the wooded trail and banked around a corner. I shouldered my 12 gauge and fired a 40-yard desperation shot through the brush.

After almost three days of scouring the woods of northern Minnesota, it was the first grouse I had shot at -- and I had no illusions that I had connected.

Then my 2-year-old yellow Lab raced back with the downed bird in her mouth. Call it a great shot -- or a lucky one. I was just happy to have finally flushed a ruffie in shooting range.

Minnesota's ruffed grouse are supposed to still be near their peak population levels, but they were elusive during a three-day jaunt last week through northern Minnesota. Hunting alternately by myself and with a companion, I counted 20 grouse and 17 woodcock that flushed ahead of our guns. Four grouse and three ''timberdoodles'' fell to our shots.

Still, I encountered a surprising lack of birds for the miles I traveled -- and walked -- hunting near Bemidji, Deer River and Remer. Other anecdotal reports this season indicate I'm not alone.

"It should have been better,'' said Ted Dick, Department of Natural Resources grouse coordinator at Grand Rapids. Dick was off work Friday, and we hunted together in the Deer River area with his 2-year-old English setter, Jake. We worked some ideal cover -- young aspen, trees 1- to 3-inches in diameter.

By 4 p.m., we had flushed 11 grouse, and I had bagged one. We also flushed eight woodcock, and Dick shot two.

"That's the slowest day I've had this season by a factor of four,'' he said.

Where are the birds?

"I was optimistic when the season started; I thought it could be very good,'' said Dick, 49, who was a DNR wildlife manager at Baudette for 10 years before getting the agency's new grouse coordinator job a year ago. Spring drumming counts showed a population that remained near its peak.

"But it depends on recruitment [reproduction], and it's pretty obvious people aren't seeing a lot of juvenile birds. It looks like recruitment wasn't great. There are pockets of decent hunting. But it's not as good as any of us were hoping.''

A cold, wet spring probably resulted in poor reproduction.

"I'm fairly confident we won't hit the 466,000 birds that we harvested last year,'' Dick said.

It now appears that 2009 and 2010 were the population peaks for grouse, which tend to run in 10-year boom-to-bust cycles. How far down the population drops, and how quickly, is unknown.

However, hunting grouse isn't a lost cause this season. There have been good reports from Crane Lake, Detroit Lakes, Ely, Two Harbors and elsewhere. And in the area I hunted last week, I encountered two grouse hunters from Atlanta who flew to Minnesota with their German shorthaired pointer. That day they flushed 24 birds, bagging six.

Dick's job, funded 30 percent by the Ruffed Grouse Society, is to promote grouse hunting.

"Grouse hunters are one of our largest constituencies,'' he said. "Our hunter numbers are declining, and we want to try to do something about it.''

An estimated 92,000 grouse hunters were afield last year, a 6 percent increase from 2009. But that's 34 percent below the 139,000 who hunted during the last grouse population peak in 1999.

Plenty of room

One thing about grouse hunting: There's no lack of places to hunt. Dick said there are 17 million acres of private and public forest land in the state, including 6 million acres of aspen. Finding quality habitat boosts a hunters' chances of finding grouse.

He recommends getting off established trails.

Dick and I constantly bushwhacked through thick woods, using his GPS device to make sure we didn't get lost. He looks for new aspen growth, though slightly more mature aspen forests also can hold birds.

Finding such spots proved difficult in portions of the Chippewa National Forest that I hunted the day before. I drove countless miles of forest roads, never finding ideal habitat. I did flush three woodcock, bagging one.

Conditions looking better

High winds last week brought down many leaves, which should improve grouse hunting.

With the autumn sun heading for the horizon, Dick and I separately hunted a final hunting spot for the day. And we both stumbled on grouse nirvana.

I flushed four, bagging two, as daylight expired.

Dick flushed five grouse and nine woodcock, shooting a grouse and woodcock. We finished the day with four grouse and three woodcock -- a respectable showing.

"That's all it takes is one good spot,'' he said, sitting with his dog on the tailgate of his pickup at dusk. "Everything is good now.''

Doug Smith • dsmith@startribune.com