New Jersey Grouse season

[edgarspencer]

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.

[Rick Riddell]

Originally Posted by edgarspencer

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.

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.