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.

Just hearing something like that is like going back in Time.

Our biggest problem in Maine is the increase numbers in accipiters and delayed spring, cold and wet. Most hunting in Maine, believe it or not, is done from riding the dirt roads and hopping out to shoot one on the road, or in a tree near the road. Seldom do people venture in the woods. We still have logging, so there is a fair amount of turnover. In the past two years I have seen an increase in birds where at one time there were none.

My two cents. I am from the center of Connecticut. I was 12 years old in 1972. I had spent the better part of the first 12 years of my life following behind my father who was a great grouse hunter. I witnessed him shoot true doubles on grouse multiple times. And grouse were plentiful. I hunted them in Connecticut from 1974 until I shot my last Connecticut grouse in 1982 when the Connecticut grouse had all but dried up. They were the same farms & covers that I followed behind my dad on and they sure still looked like great grouse cover. I believe the answer is a combination of predators And some kind of disease.
I have a camp in the NEK of Vermont & there are still birds but no where near the numbers that they once were. I can say the same about Northern New Hampshire. I’m guessing we will all agree that NH grouse have also seen a large decline in the last 15 to 20 years.
All I know for sure is that I love the king and it is heartbreaking to witness. I will add that the ruffed grouse is largely responsible for my love of side by sides. A good pointer along with a Parker a few Ruffs and a good friend are the things dreams are made of.

Rick, our place is in Greenville and I have hunted basically from Casey’s Camp Rd. and north. Where there would be 10-20 flushed walking Frenchtown to Spencer Mtn, today there might be 4-5. All of my wife’s cousins are heater hunters and as a rule, put 40+ birds in the freezer annually. I’m quite familiar with this practice and refuse to participate. The slaughter in late November and December is wholly unethical.

I heard that Vt. may close grouse season too.
possibly all of new England will close all upland hunting.
something to think about!:bigbye:

nice try

We had a very good Grouse season here in New Hampshire last fall. I pretty much hunt Pittsburg and we consistently had many flushes per day, much more the fall before. With the VERY intense hunting pressure you need to get off Indian Stream Road and all the other major logging roads and hike back a bit. If you know the country and do that you will be surprised what you will find in terms of birds.

Not the case in some areas but in many it depends on how far you’re willing to get from the “tried and true” crowd-pleasing producers that just don’t produce after the first week of bird season.





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My moms property in northwestern Connecticut abuts 700+ acres of hilly, rocky woods and I’ve been hunting that area all my life. Most of it was never suitable for farming or even dairy but it was cleared and extensively quarried up to about 100 years ago. Very few open meadows and the partridges were never very numerous in my lifetime. But selective logging of the large trees has allowed in more light and opened the way for young saplings and brambles to establish. Partridge numbers improved. But when the forest canopy returned it choked off this food source and numbers declined -at least until the next round of logging. But it’s interesting to see the huge increase in turkeys. I had never seen one until about 10 years ago and now they’re about as common as squirrels.

About 600 acres of the land I hunt in Vermont is old grown-over hardscrabble farms, some dating back to the late 1790's and early 1800's. This 600 or so acres are all owned by one person - a very good boyhood friend of mine - and there are fieldstone foundations scattered here and there in the woods, on the edges of meadows and a few along the gravel roads in the area... but he's gotta pay his taxes so some of his land is for sale. But several years before he put it up for sale he sold off a lot of stumpage that was cut and chipped into bio-mass. Year after year I told him he was cutting all the spruce and fir roosting areas that the grouse need just as badly as they need food, water and oxygen to breathe. He simply said "It'll grow back..." I said "Not in our lifetime it won't." Yeah, it will grow back someday but I've already noticed a decline in grouse numbers. But there are many more factors that contribute to the decline in grouse numbers that we are witnessing everywhere in their range - it's not just the loss of roosting trees... and it's not just the predators... and it's not just WNV... and it's not just over-hunting... and it's not just mature dense canopy forests... it's all of these things combined. What can we possibly do to slow this (these) processes?





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[QUOTE=Dean Romig;278160]Not the case in some areas but in many it depends on how far you’re willing to get from the “tried and true” crowd-pleasing producers that just don’t produce after the first week of bird

Dean, not that far, believe me. After almost 40 years of Hunting/Guiding in Pittsburg, NH, I can say that most hunters are intimidated by the big woods and will not venture more that 200 yards max off the traveled roads. Get back a bit more, and you would be amazed at the birds you will find.

Oh, I know. Same in the NEK.





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Comment deleted

I like to carry a Parker while grouse hunting, but agree with Steve it is "legs that kill the birds"

i have never even seen a live grouse but enjoy listenings to the tails of the hunt you guys do....charlie

I hunted the Pittsburg area for quite a few years. It always amazed me that most folks seemed to just walk the roads/trails. That never suited my style and we trekked cross country seeing lots of birds and very, very rarely another hunter.

I'll put in my two cents on this subject. I've hunted grouse more than 40 years now. I've hunted in north west CT. through the 80's and 90's when it was typical to flush a dozen birds per day. Since the introduction of the turkeys the grouse have virtually disappeared. Same goes now, for the Catskills. A lot of the killing in northern New England come from the locals that just shoot them off the road and then complain that there aren't as many as there used to be.
CT performed a study a few years back and counted only 17 birds in the entire state. Their answer is clear cutting, but that wont bring birds if there aren't any around. when asked if they would bring in birds form another state the answer was no.

Louis, I know to a lot of folks "road hunting" for grouse in New England is not to there liking. But please keep in mind local tradition is important and criticizing the practice does nothing but divide the hunting community. I was raised "road hunting" and although I not longer hunt that way I have no problem with others doing so. Grouse have a very high mortality rate and you cannot "stockpile" them. Most biologists will tell you that hunting has very little, if any effects on the overall grouse population. Good habitat and conducive spring weather is what dictates a healthy grouse population. I know I will get the ire of members here for my comments, but this is what I believe.

I agree with you Steve. There’s nothing wrong with road hunting - as long as it’s done on foot. Another New England tradition in certain ‘off the beaten path’ localities is shooting grouse from the open window of a car or truck. And though acceptable in some remote circles, it is a highly illegal, not to mention unethical, practice. In the enthusiasm of one guy I met several years ago in northern VT, he told me where I could go to shoot a lot of birds this way without getting caught. I simply told him that I have too much respect for the law, the grouse, and myself to ever consider doing it.

Road hunting and “ground swatting” are legal methods of putting birds in the bag.... if that’s all you want...





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In earlier times, with a Parker, with a Dog, on Foot, in the Grouse woods. The way it should be.

Best, Chris
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Dean, of course I am referring to only "legal" methods of road hunting.

Double post

well, it is a doubles board

When we first started hunting grouse in Minnesota we encountered quite a few folks in vehicles that would drive along and either hop out and shoot a grouse when they saw it, or shoot it from the window. The latter method is illegal in Minnesota.

Over the years as four-wheelers became the norm, they replaced the vehicles (I think the rise in gas prices also had an effect)...and we started running into them on the trails far from roads. While I don't like this "method," I live with it, knowing that every license bought brings in Pittman-Robertson funds into the State for conservation work. Minnesota has responded to the four-wheeler issue by setting aside land that is for walking hunters only. As good a compromise as I can imagine. I must admit the four-wheelers make the trails easier to walk after they push down the grasses and ferns.

As for "ground swatting" that's a state-by-state situation. It is not unusual in quail states for there to be explicit laws against shooting upland game birds on the ground (turkeys not considered an upland bird, but either "big game" or game unto themselves). I just cannot see a justification for shooting a wild Bobwhite on the ground. To me, even if it's not legal, I think it's dangerous, unethical, and just wrong. If you are killing a winged bird, shooting on the ground is another matter. Shooting ducks on the water -- only to kill a crippled bird. Shooting a turkey on the roost -- illegal in all the states I hunt in, and unethical in my book.

There are too few birds to not have the highest standards for their taking. It's called sport hunting not because it's a game, but because there are rules. Those rules can be written into law, or held by the hunter's own conscience and ethical sense.

" It's called sport hunting not because it's a game, but because there are rules".

Times are changing and so is the perception of the the term "sport hunting". It does not carry the positive connotation than it once did. Anti hunting groups are using it to paint hunters as non-caring thugs who kill for "sport". A group here in New Hampshire who call themselves the "New Hampshire Wildlife Collation" are broadcasting this term in a negative way to the general, non-hunting public to discredit hunting in general.

From the NH Collation " We also agreed that sport hunting (killing for the sake of killing) has no place in modern society. "

This is becoming a slippery slope and we must be aware of that as a hunting community. I am not saying that it is right, but as the old song said, the times they are a changing.

Steve, I could not agree more. I no longer like to use the term sport hunting because most folks don't know its origin. When a few
American writers, many years ago, advocated for elevating hunting to the same plane as other sports, they were calling for a more ethical approach in a time when wanton slaughter was the norm. Guys like Herbert (Frank Forrester) and Grinnell made good cases for there to be rules of conduct for hunters. It seems our own hunting community of today has lost track of why ethical hunting became known as sport hunting.

I also do not care for the term "blood sport" for similar reasons. Steve, you are so correct about anti-hunting strategies manipulating the meanings of both terms.

I developed and taught a course on hunting and conservation in my last years teaching. I learned a great deal in doing research for the course, but even more from my interactions with students. I came away from that course afraid for the future of hunting, but with a sense of how it could be perpetuated even if there were non-hunters (big difference from anti-hunters) who only barely understood what happens afield.

Language matters. Just look around at how we describe things in our world and our interactions with each other today.

Garry, oh do I long for the days of Kurt Gowdy and the American Sportsman show on Sunday afternoons, when hunting was an honorable pastime.

Amen! Like so many other things that Time has taken away.

The term "sport hunting" was originally coined to set what we do apart from market hunting or subsistence hunting, where it is expected that the hunter take birds or game by any means and method that was the most economical to the hunter.... Punt guns anyone?... or grouse snares... or ground swatting or shooting birds out of trees...





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Steve thanks for the Kurt Gowdy FLASHBACK. My brother and I spent many wonderful times together watching the different guest each week hunting game in so many areas.