Grouse season-end review
 

In early Sept, I was feeling a bit discouraged about the prospects for the new season. So I asked what others were expecting. Now, with the season over, I was wondering what folks have experienced. My personal impression/experience is that this season was a lot better that last season, but not as good as the two previous seasons. In general, I would call it average over all. Success was achieved however, with a lot more effort, both in walking and with driving. Also,it seems that the further north one goes, the greater the success. What are your impressions?

only hunted sharptails . Population seemed good , not as good as a couple years back but still managed 3 . Ruffles I saw while deer hunting were few and far between in 300 zones

Grouse up North
 

Grouse numbers up North in the 500s seem to be pretty healthy in my area. In my early September and October outings, I seen a lot of ruffed grouse, few spruce grouse and quite a few sharptails pending the area. I was fortunate to get my limits without much difficulty. As the end of November approached, I seen fewer ruffys and more spruce grouse, mainly hens...possibly because of the amount of snow we received. In comparison to last year, this year was much better:)

Ruffie numbers in 306 402 and 400 were healthy

Blues were in good numbers....

Lots of spruce around too

I was out four times. Got the limit on the first day which appeared to be just a pure luck, as I did not see a bird on three other outings in 406.

312 was above average.

326, 328, 330, 332 poor to very poor. Compared to years past. Most of the ones I did see were spruce.

312 well above average, good sharp tail numbers in the east, actually really great numbers of sharptails, put some up today while walking the dog.

336, 337, 509, 234, were all poor. 12 days of hunting deer and grouse and only saw 2 ruffles. Did see quite a few Huns this year but didn’t have a shotgun with us on that trip.

Spent most of my time in 512 as that’s where I had my early moose tag. Not many ruffies, a few places had pockets of spruce hens. Overall a slower grouse year. In November I saw only a few grouse in 512/517/519/529... only bagged 2 spruce and 3 ruffies all year. Now I wasn’t out hunting hard but usually I pick up 10-15 of each species in a given season.
Did see more rabbits this year. Shot a few in October and snared a few in December

338 birds were spotty but overall I think an improvement over last year. All roughies I think I saw one spruce grouse.

Ruffies in the 500's where I hunted were scarce as were spruce grouse..
Cat

Last year we did pretty good there, this year wasn’t that great at all! We were seeing 2-3 birds if we lucky! But got a few bunnies - ther was not much snow on the ground so we could see them good!

There were a few clutch's early giving us a 38 grouse day seen

over all numbers were about the same a last year

we saw 192 grouse of those 5 sharp-tail's which are not open

2019/20 we saw 206

2018/19 we saw 350

Upland hunting in the foothills has been awesome:sHa_shakeshout:

.22 Semi Rem 597 4x Bushnell 38gr American Eagle:test:

head shots only :fighting0007:

mmmm nothing like a grouse supper:47b20s0:

David:)

Ya it was weird would go out one weekend and barely see a bird and then next weekend we would see a dozen. We were mostly in the Carrot tower area

Also , my bad I meant 338 sorry bout that.

My experience was on par with yours

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Fairly similar experience here as well. Put in a lot of shoe leather, and we potted more spruce grouse this year than usual.

500s
 

Guess I should have been more specific. Lots of grouse in 536, ruffys and spruce. 535 holds a whack of sharptails.

I did not chase any Ruffies this year which are my favorite table fare but Pheasants were great this year and I did not hunt any release sites I saw lots of sharpies but season was already closed .....

507/350 numbers seemed down this year and last year. Saw fewer Ruffies and more Sprucies this year. Birds were skittish as can be. Still managed a couple tasty dinners. Little gifts from the forest.

And they were very well educated! I have never seen them starting to run when the vehicle approached, but this year was different. They would freeze for a second and if they see the vehicle slowing down or stopping- they run like a antelope!

Hunted mostly in 356 and it was an average year for me. I found that ruffies were very area specific . Some areas seemed barren then a few miles away they were thick . Not sure why but the river hills seemed to be more productive than usual while the poplar flats were thin.

I hunted in 336, 334, 339, 936, 248.

Early season I thought that I was going to have a ****ty year and not find many ruffed grouse. I didn't bird hunt much through November as I chased bigger critters. By late season I was consistently bringing multiple birds home each day and seeing a lot more flushes than that. Overall I saw more birds this year than the last 2-3 for sure.

312/318/320 all very poor for our group this year. Way below normal.

We saw average numbers in 349/350 early in the season. Nothing mid season, but higher numbers in Dec. The 2 trips to 358 yielded fewer flushes than usual early, but higher numbers in Oct, mostly because they seemed to be flocked up.

I hunted the 200 zones. I saw a few while hunting bigger Critters but it was few. The couple times i did go out on purpose for grouse i got skunked.

I saw lots of Spruce while out in the mountains. Lots of Sharp-tails as well but a veritable onslaught of bird hunters in my area could fix that for next year.

Seen below average amounts of ruffies in areas South of #1 west of #2 north of #3 not the best Intel from me that area is vast and I wasn’t focused on them. there was still enough in the back 40 to supplement mountain house ever day or 2.

wmu 338
 

ruffies a few less than normal, hardly saw a spruce

I hunted a total of 19 days in 512/518/530 and in that time I only saw a half dozen grouse in total and didn’t kill a one. Pretty amazing when you consider 3-4 years ago you couldn’t walk anywhere without kicking one up.