Hunters bagging Minnesota grouse at a good clip despite signs of a waning population

Minnesota’s ruffed grouse hunting — widely considered the best in the nation — appears to be holding up this fall despite signs of natural population decline for the state’s most popular game bird.

Participants in the annual National Grouse and Woodcock Hunt around Grand Rapids in early October bagged an average of .93 grouse per day, slightly exceeding the 10-year average. That was up from last year and the 10-year daily average of .85 grouse per hunter.

But this year’s spring drumming counts were down statewide and hunters have been reporting seeing smaller densities of the birds.

Participants in the National Grouse and Woodcock Hunt harvested 158 grouse over two days, mainly on public land in typical fall weather, said Stefan Nelson, forest wildlife specialist for the host Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society.

The collective woodcock harvest by this year’s group of 85 hunters was 208 birds. While the woodcock take was much higher than the 117 bagged last year, the harvest of “timberdoodles” was lower than the 10-year average.

The annual gathering of grouse and timberdoodle hunters, now in its 43rd year, was filled with mostly positive chatter about the shooting opportunities, Nelson said. But true to form in the chase of the elusive birds, hunters shot an average of only one out of every seven grouse that flushed, according to data hunters reported from their outings.

“Most metrics seemed better than last year,” Nelson said, “but it’s hard to generalize across the fall season because it’s just two days.”

According to the Department of Natural Resources, the ruffed grouse is the most popular game bird in Minnesota, with an annual harvest of 200,000 to 500,000 birds. Ruffed grouse hunter numbers have been as high as 92,000 during the past 10 years, but participation hasn’t risen with recent grouse population peaks, the DNR has reported.

Lindsey Shartell, DNR’s northeast regional wildlife manager, assisted with the national hunt and has been out regularly with her dog, Cooper, this fall. Young aspen stands favored by grouse and woodcock are abundant in the northeast.

“It’s definitely been a good season but it’s down from 2023. That was a banner year,” she said.

DNR wildlife research scientist Charlotte Roy has written that Minnesota’s grouse numbers are trending downward since peaking last year. The birds were hit by extreme summer drought in 2021 and spring flooding in 2022 but they’ve benefitted from favorable winter conditions since 2021-2022.

Roy noted in a report this summer that Minnesota’s ruffed grouse population cycles about every 10 years, but peaks in the cycle vary from 8 to 11 years apart. Declining drumming counts reported in spring roadside surveys, when observers count how many times they hear the muffled drumming sound of a male grouse beating his wings against the air, indicate that the last three peaks in the cycle were 2024, 2017 and 2005, Roy has reported.

New this year are improved public trailheads on designated hunting routes where ATVs and other motorized vehicles are prohibited, Shartell said. She added that wildlife managers are preparing to demonstrate growing use of the trails by non-hunters — a trend that could lead the DNR to apply better maintenance during the off-season.