Adam Johnson shot two spruce grouse, Justin Johnson a ruffed grouse and Dan Small a snowshoe hare on a northern Minnesota hunt. Photo by Tim Lesmeister.

It started as a casual conversation at a writer’s conference. Denelle Hovde, the director of the Baudette Visitor’s and Convention Bureau, and I were discussing the upcoming ice-fishing season and our conversation somehow shifted to bird hunting.

Hovde then began bragging up the ruffed grouse hunting in her neck of the woods and chastised me when I got this, “Ya, right,” look on my face. I was thinking the only birds in those woods that far north were spruce grouse, and I hadn’t heard reports of many of those around.

“You just ask Greg,” she scolded. “He’ll tell you that I’m not exaggerating.”

She was referring to Greg Hennum of Sportsman’s Lodge on the Rainy River. Hennum is an avid hunter and he tends to under-exaggerate, so when he told me he was seeing plenty of ruffed grouse and he was predicting great hunting, I told Hovde I would check it out.

I figured if what I was hearing was true, hunting that far north for grouse should be outstanding for a couple of reasons. Hunters from the cities and even other states likely won’t travel as far north as Baudette, preferring instead to hunt in the heavily promoted north-central section of Minnesota. This means less pressure on the birds and fewer hunters in the woods.

Unfortunately, Hennum was in Canada chasing whitetails when I made the trip up to Baudette for some bird hunting. However, I still had quite a posse. Adam Johnson volunteered to go and brought his producer, K.C. O’Dea, a cameraman, Casey Dingells and Dan Small from Wisconsin joined us as well. Hennum left us in good hands with two of his guides, Justin Johnson and Eric Lindquist.

We were barely 10 minutes into the woods when a half-dozen spruce grouse started shooting out of the pines. Adam dropped one and the rest took advantage of the heavy cover.

People say spruce grouse are not as wary as the ruffed grouse and sometimes you have to kick them to get them to fly. But the birds we were stumbling on were getting up quickly and high-tailing it out of there.

Since the season had been open for a couple of weeks, maybe these birds had been shot at already. I wondered how many hunters chased spruce grouse, and later I posed that question to Rick Horton, the Department of Natural Resources’ Forest Wildlife Division coordinator.

“They do get picked off by predators, but not many hunters shoot them,” Horton said. “They’re not pressured by hunters because of how they compare as table fare. Ruffed grouse have been described as the best-eating game bird in the world. Spruce grouse have been described as the very worst. You get an adult spruce grouse that’s been feeding on spruce and jackpine buds, and their meat is red and gamey.”

The spruce grouse aren’t as far south as the ruffed grouse are, and this shorter range means less hunting pressure.

“It’s along the northern tier of counties where you see big stands of conifers that you find the spruce grouse,” Horton said. “It’s more of a boreal bird. Not many people pursue them. Our data shows on the order of 20,000 to 25,000 get taken each year compared to several hundred thousand ruffed grouse per year.”

After we circled a swamp in the Beltrami Island State Forest, we came upon some high ground where the aspens were abundant, and sure enough, a few ruffed grouse scooted out from under our feet. Justin made a spectacular shot and dropped one as it pirouetted around a tree. The other grouse were saved by the cover they flew behind.