Photo by Ron Sinfelt

I was comparing notes with Rick Horton, the forest wildlife biologist for the Ruffed Grouse Society in Minnesota about our 2004 success hunting grouse, and we came to some interesting conclusions. We both decided hunters like to revisit spots where they had success in the past. "They hunt memories," said Horton, and he told me a story that brought this point into focus.

"I was out with a landowner and we were talking about grouse management," said Horton, "and he would say, 'This was always a good spot, but I haven't seen any here lately, and that was a good spot and we always got a bird up over here, but I haven't seen any there the past few years.' I asked him how long ago this happened and he said, 'Maybe 15, 20 years ago.' I just smiled and said, 'Fifteen years ago that was great grouse cover. Now it's not. That cover was thick back then, and now you can see all the way through it.' Things change."

Habitat changes, but hunters don't. From our experiences the past few years we both concluded that some hunters find birds no matter how tough conditions are, and others only get some shooting when grouse numbers are high.

"The people who don't do well on a down year never get off the trails and hunt the habitat," said Horton. "It's their style and they're going to work trails because they've had luck doing it in the past when the numbers were high. If they don't see birds, they just figure there weren't any."

I'm probably just as guilty as the next guy. I always feel compelled to drive up the Echo Trail from Ely to a spot by the Moose River where about a dozen years ago we found an old clearcut that was loaded with grouse. My oldest son and a couple of his buddies and I were walking through the woods getting a ruffed grouse here and a spruce grouse there. About halfway through the hunt I stepped over the top of a 4-foot rock shelf and there were three ruffed grouse sitting there. They immediately flushed. I locked on the bird to the left, squeezed the trigger, swung to the bird in the center and dropped him next. The third grouse was just getting to the thick timber when I let a third round go and he dropped as well. A triple on grouse. If I had been playing the lottery that minute, I would have won. Odds are good this situation will never happen again. But I still visit that spot, and for the past half-dozen years I haven't flushed a grouse in those woods. That's called hunting memories.

According to Horton, there is a window of opportunity when grouse will find an area satisfactory to their needs. When this section matures, the grouse move to other locations that provide better habitat.

"You have to remember that for grouse it's only good habitat for about 10 years," said Horton, who then described how a landowner can maintain good hunting on property they control. "If you want to keep a section on your land good grouse habitat, the way to go about that is to harvest sections in a rotational basis so that some part of your property is being harvested every 10 years. It's difficult to keep one patch of ground good grouse cover forever. Even if you did try to regenerate a piece, you're going to have a 10-year lag.