Dan Dessecker of the Ruffed Grouse Society said weather played a major role in last season's poor grouse hunting in Michigan. Photo by Mike Gnatkowski

Michigan grouse hunters have been poised the last couple of years like a teenager on a first date, all puckered up, full of anticipation with hormones raging, waiting for something great to happen. Much like the frustrated teenager, Michigan's grouse hunter's expectations have not come to fruition.

"I predicted that we would see some increase in grouse numbers in 2004," said Dan Dessecker, senior wildlife biologist with the Ruffed Grouse Society. "That was true in Minnesota, but it didn't happen in Wisconsin and Michigan. The 2004 season across much of the region was very similar to 2003. We saw a slight upturn in Minnesota, and even in isolated parts of Wisconsin, but not in Michigan. The cycle moves west to east, so we're likely to see some improvement this year in Wisconsin and Michigan."

Dessecker said that weather was probably a big factor in the delay of the recovery.

"We had a very poor spring last year with regard to nesting success and that undoubtedly set back the recovery," theorized Dessecker. "The cold, wet spring we experienced last year didn't help."

Dessecker said that the grouse cycle typically hits its low end in years that end in "3," "4" or "5" and peaks in years that end in "8," "9" or "0." Dessecker cautioned though that the cycle doesn't always follow a predictable 10-year timetable. Harvest estimates compiled by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, though, indicated that the 10-year cycle is fairly accurate. Michigan experienced peaks in the grouse harvest during the past decades in 2000 and 1990, and very good hunting from 1979 through 1982.

"I've always said that during the low end of the cycle, that a reasonable hunter with dogs will flush an average of two grouse per hour," suggested Dessecker. "When the cycle peaks, that same hunter is going to average six or seven flushes per hour. Obviously, considering recent flush rates, we are already at the bottom of the cycle."

Flush rates across the state for 2003, the last year for which the figures were available, averaged 1.45 flushes per hour. Flush rates in 2004 probably weren't much different.

Al Stewart, Michigan DNR game-bird specialist, echoed Dessecker's observations.

"The 2004 grouse season was not too bad," claimed Stewart, "but it wasn't any better than 2003. We are definitely at the low end of the cycle. I think weather events have curtailed the grouse recovery somewhat. Given a good nesting season, we should begin that uphill creep that we've been expecting. People are not going to see any major change from this fall from last fall, but using my crystal ball, I think we should see some improvement."

Even with grouse numbers at a cyclical low, grouse hunting provides a lot of recreational opportunity. The DNR estimates that about 103,000 hunters spent time in the woods pursuing Michigan's most popular forest game bird. Each hunter spent an average of seven to eight days afield, totaling almost a million days of recreation. Michigan's grouse harvest was estimated at 358,000 birds in 2003, and Stewart suggested that the 2004 harvest was somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000 grouse.

Michigan wildlife biologists use several methods to estimate and monitor ruffed grouse populations, including hunter cooperator surveys, spring breeding surveys and hunter mail surveys. Cooperator surveys are based on volunteer hunters who express an interest in participating and are willing to maintain hunting records every year. The early-season reports provided by ruffed grouse cooperators allows biologists to get a quick fix on hunting success and bird abundance during the beginning of the grouse season and before final season figures are available.