New Jersey Grouse season
 

The New Jersey Fish and Game has suspended the upcoming grouse season.
Other states have been considering doing the same, Indiana was considering putting them on their "endangered" list

New Jersey may as well suspend the grouse season, I have hunted woodcock in NJ for the past 40 years and have never seen a ruffed grouse.

Someone please put me in a time machine and send me back to the '50's.
I'd miss all you guys but what a great time I would have, (please send my dogs and a couple Parkers also)

Very sad. Wild quail down here are about as bad

When my wife and I were looking for a house we wanted a minimum 2 acre lot. The realtor asked us to consider a listing on a house with 1 1/4 acres. Not expecting much, we went to see it anyway. The rear of the property was lightly wooded, and on a hillside. As the seller and I walked the property line we flushed a grouse. The deal was done within minutes. That was 29 years ago, and I've seen only 4 or 5 other grouse in New Jersey SGL's during the following 29 hunting seasons.

Back in 1996 I purchased some hunting land here in Southeastern IN. Initially it was quite common to see and hear grouse, actually I would use the term abundant. Turkey hunting in the Spring I would always hear numerous birds drumming with sightings from the deer stand being the norm. I can recall many a morning when I passed the time watching birds through my binoculars. Currently I cannot recall the last time I saw or heard a bird but it would surely be some 10 years or so ago, sad for certain.

I guess that the problem in NJ is lack of transitional forest land. Most of the forest land here is mature forest, which is counter productive to the ruffed grouse. I would venture to say that a good logging program would do good things for many of the wildlife species of NJ. Unfortunately, if that was ever to actually come to fruition here, every tree hugger in the Trig-State area would be on the site protesting the cutting of trees and the liberal media would be right along with them filming the degradation of NJ's forests.

Harold

Read that copy of Partridge Shortenin you have. Grampa Grouse will take you back and you'll morn as I do when the pages get thin.

A fellow bought 100 acres of some of my favorite grouse hunting covers in VT 2 years ago and built a house/camp on it.
I immediately went and introduced myself and told him we had been hunting there since the 50's and would he mind if we continued to do so. He replied that he was a hunter and that's why he bought this particular property - and said "Just be careful which direction you shoot and you'll be welcome any time." When I was up there in turkey season this spring he told me he had heard a number of birds drumming and he flushed six on a half-hour walk. I told him I heard them too that morning. We agreed we would hunt the property every three or four days so as not to push them too hard.





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I wrote the Inland Fish & Wildlife Div., in Maine and said that I believed the Maine grouse season was too long, and the bag was too generous. It runs from 10/1 until 12/31, with a bag of 4 per day.
After the first deep snow, they are sitting ducks, in the birch and alders, as they can't ground feed. They replied that their 'people' had reviewed it and determined the population was adequate to support the hunt.
My experience, in the past several years, not hunting as the locals do, is that the population is in decline.