Help Us Plan the 2011-12 Serious Bird Tour!
Not our kinda hunting, but we'll consider anything...(Orvis photo).
How do you keep your Serious birdin’ spirits up in the summer months? Well, besides spending time with the dog, smacking some clays and trying to stay in shape, for us there’s…trip-planning.
If you’re lucky enough to hunt right outside your door, or close to it, great. But many of us have to jump in some sort of vehicle and spend weeks at a time trying to stuff ourselves full of enough bird experiences to last another year – or 8 months.
One benefit to that is the planning. Where do we want to hunt, familiar territory or brand new places? What states? What species? What gear do we “need” to acquire or test/evaluate?
And then, when we figure out where we’re going, we begin scouring maps…because it works and it’s tons o’ fun.
But we’re not there yet. We need to figure out where to go, and are looking for any and all suggestions.
Here’s what we’re thinking:
Ruffies
East/New England
> NY – Where? Shushan? Tupper Lake?
> VT – Newport area?
> NH – Pittsburg area?
> ME – We’re sick of the Moosehead/Golden Road spots – point us somewhere!
Midwest
> MN – We hunted around the Leech Lake area last year, didn’t do so hot. Any suggestions?
> WI – Ditto.
> MI – Ditto.
Pheasants/Quail
> KS – We keep hearing the hype, might have to check it out.
> SD – Should we? Anywhere off the beaten path?
> Anywhere else?
Notes
Obviously not expecting you to hand over your hard-earned spots. Just some general help would be good – decent areas, any guides you can recommend. Guides: We’ll be filming some of our hunts, so if you’re interested in being famous (lol), let us know.
Other than that we’re looking for places that aren’t heavily hunted: We don’t do well in crowds….
Any help much appreciated!
Category: Pheasants, Ruffed Grouse, SBH
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
MN: Go more northeast around Orr. I like to hunt closer to the cities (I live in Mpls) for my quicker trips, I also seem to find more woodcock then grouse. For better grouse go further north then Leech Lake unless you have private land to hunt. My French Britt loves when we go north he gets to hunt more on those longer trips.
You really should go to Idaho sometime for ruffs and even blues. They don’t fly as hard or at all but it is still fun to get out. the locals told me “why would I hunt that stupid bird”, I told them they must have not ate a ruff grouse before.
ME: Try getting useless is Eustis. Washington County as well. If you hit it right you could have some incredible Woodcock hunting.
NH: Pittsburg – I was there this past weekend on the Upper Connecticut. The fishing was slow with the high flows and cold water, but I haven’t heard that much drumming in years!
I live in Carrabassett Valley Maine, last year we did great in the Eustis area. I’d be happy to point you in the general direction.
Drummings up in Minnesota from last year, and my opinion it was some of the best hunting I have had since I started to chase the forest chicken. I have hunted East of Leech lake alot, found good success, but this year I hunted further north and found more birds.
Upper Red lake and go east from there should be excellent this year. However lets hope this spring weather doesn’t cause havoc on the chicks!!
I also would recommend the Phillips Wisconsin area of the Chequamegon National Forest – Neat area lots of birds!!
Northern Wisconsin is a great place to hunt grouse and woodcock.The northern half of the State has thousands of acres of State and Federal forest land. Price, Lincoln, Oneida and Vilas counties have the best habitat.
The grouse are drumming it up right now. It sounds like an outboard motor convention.
If you are interested in grouse hunting in Northern Wisconsin this fall E-mail me@ GrousehuntWI@wi.rr.com
Woodruff Road Kennels & Guide Service.
414-232-9567
Price County and Clark County, Wisconsin
Many parts of Wisconsin are great areas for grouse and woodcock. In the northern area, Price County is a fabulous area for grouse hunting. If you move to the middle of the state, Clark County is dynamite for both grouse and woodcock.
Group hunts working brush along creeks and streams with dogs often produce many birds.