doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Not good-potential early closure of WI bird season

How many died from it and were never found ?

If they do cut the season short, you guys'll never get back the time cut off of the season...Geo

That depends, Geo. MN. closed the firearms deer season in 1972, as, there were no deer. If they tried that today, non hunters would overthrow the government in St. Paul due to the damage the deer do to property and cars.
The Federal WMA at Sherburn built an area that was supposed to give people a chance to see Canada geese in a natural state, complete with an observation deck and a pond built for the geese, as someone at the time thought Canada�s were the next doomed species. Let�s just say that never came to pass, quite the opposite, in fact, and the entire area sits unused to this day. The feds, in my humble opinion, do a piss poor job managing WMAs under their control, and the above is a shining example of that.
I�d be willing to bet there are numerous causes in the decline of woodcock and Ruffed Grouse. WNV is likely just part of the puzzle.
Closing part of the season won�t likely change anything. Except, maybe, for the goshawks.

Best,
Ted

Most of the WI hunters with whom I've discussed the proposal to close the grouse season after Nov 30 don't seem overly concerned about it. By that time, snow significantly limits access to a lot of places we've been hunting grouse for the previous 2 1/2 months. Or turns it into a literal slog through the snow. It won't accomplish anything other than demonstrating to the public that the DNR is taking the decline in grouse numbers seriously . . . but not doing much of anything to help solve the problem.

Apparently, Larry doesn't know that grouse still inhabit the woodlands after it snows. They don't hibernate and they still must feed. That sort of thing can happen if you do much of your hunting and shooting with a keyboard instead of a gun. I always enjoyed our late grouse season, and mostly hunted grouse in January, after our flintlock deer season closed or after I shot a deer. For sure, all of the leaves are down, and seeing the bird is a lot easier with the snowy background.

I didn't get out as much as I normally do in the regular season last fall due to work, but numbers were definitely way down. Then, during deer season I am often presented with flushes so straightaway that I often think I could kill the bird with my flintlock rifle. But I didn't see a single grouse during our regular rifle or our flintlock deer seasons. For several years, I've noticed a lot of piles of feathers where I assumed a hawk or coyote took a grouse. But perhaps it was due to some animal feeding on a bird that died from disease. I really hate to see it so bad since our pheasant hunting is pretty much limited to put and take of stocked birds on State Gamelands. Because of the cancellation of the late grouse season, I didn't make the usual trip to my buddy's camp in Potter County in January. He's about 3 miles from the Dark Skies area at Cherry Springs State Park which is spectacular on a clear moonless night. He reported that grouse numbers were very low there too.

Keith:

Cherry Springs State Park is one of the three best places east of the Mississippi River to star gaze. Serious star gazers gather there when there's no moon. They fill the entire open area of the park. I was there a number of years ago and there were hundreds of people with telescopes as large as 36 inches, many slaved to computers to allow the scope to move with the star for long exposure photos. Saw my first (and only) Iridium flash that night.

I own a share of a place about 30 miles south of the park, just below the Potter/Lycoming County line.

In what part of PA are you located?

HomelessjOe,

The answer to how many were never found was answered by one of the Pa State Foresters when we talked to him.

His crews are in the woods working most every day except Sundays, and the State Forest Work Crews do see Grouse during the week, and have not run across any Grouse that perished from WNV, laying dead in the woods. Lots killed by predators of all different types, the majority by flying predators. Many feather piles where Great Horned Owls puked the feathers back up. Along the roads like RT6 they see Grouse that have been killed by vehicles, most every week.

I would hope these vehicle killed Grouse are being gathered for WNV Testing, I did not ask.


Larry Brown,

In those particular states what you say is true, however in Pa, Ny and Wva our bigger snows don't come until late Jan and Feb. Our 2nd Season here in Pa after Christmas, was seriously great Grouse hunting with just light snow until usually late January. Bill Palmer our recently retired Grouse Biologist advised our PGC to open Grouse Season clear into early February. Instead they come up with an unproven WNV theory and cut the 2nd season completely. Fortunately for us northern tier Grouse hunters, Ny still runs it's Grouse season into January. Pa's Pheasant season however runs clear into February.

Ryman Gun Dog/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

December and until mid January it usually looks like this, as we Grouse hunt here in Potter/Tioga, Pa - Beginning of the 2nd season has always been the best Grouse hunting here in Pa. - We lost that part of the season, with this unproven WNV Theory.

Dave, that's snow in PA? Here in northern WI, we had a lot more than that on the ground this year in early May!

Took the time to read Keith's remarks. As Ryman Gun Dog points out (good he's around now to help Keith out), what PA is like in the winter is not what northern WI is like. We have millions of acres of public forest, but much of it is accessible only off ATV trails (many of which can also be used by cars and trucks). They're not plowed, so even my 4x4 pickup won't help me out. Winter hunting is mostly limited to hunting off plowed roads. And that's assuming that the snow isn't too deep to wade . . . unless you do a snowshoe hunt. You can walk groomed snowmobile trails, but that's potentially dangerous for your dog--especially on weekends, when there's a fair amount of traffic. We're all well aware that the grouse are still there. The problem lies in getting to them. Of the 36 sections (square miles) in the township where I used to live, nearly half of those sections (which are mostly all public forest and open to hunting) have good access via fire lanes. But once snow makes those fire lanes impassable, there is no other access to those 10,000 acres or so of forest, much of which has good grouse habitat.

But it's always good to hear someone from hundreds of miles away tell us what it's like where we live (and they don't). If winter hunting works well for you in PA, then an early closure to the season would really mean something. Out this way, it means a lot less. By the calendar, we still have 2 1/2 months to hunt grouse even if the season closes on Nov 30. That's assuming we don't get heavy snow before the end of November, which can mean that grouse hunting opportunities are limited even earlier.

I was as surprised as Larry Clown when I saw Dave's photo depicting what he calls typical snow cover for North Central Pa. in late December to mid January. I'd say his photo is the exception rather than the rule in areas I hunt, but I don't hunt Potter county a lot. Most of my trips to the Coudersport area in early January have had considerably more ground cover. I'd also be disappointed if we only had that much snow during deer season around Dec. 1st because it would mean a tougher job dragging a deer on nearly bare ground. And if you move a little east along the Pennsylvania-New York border counties, you are solidly into snow-belt areas that get frequent very heavy lake effect snows off of Lake Erie. Lack of snow during hunting season is one of the reasons I do most of my late season hunting north of I-80.

The presence of snow is what I like best about our flintlock season for deer, and that ended a few weeks before the now cancelled late grouse season. The snow cover in Dave's photo is more like what is often normal average around Thanksgiving in most of the areas I hunt. But naturally, the first week of December can be anything from 45 degrees and raining to single digit temps and the 2-3 ft. of snow that kept us from getting to camp during doe season several years ago. Traveling 20 miles can often make a huge difference during winter too, especially when bands of lake-effect snow can take you from bare roads to white-out conditions in an instant. But Larry is confining his weather report strictly to Northern Wisconsin. The regional differences were emphasized by a Meteorology Professor I had in a class I took at Penn State University as an elective. He was one of the co-founders of Accu-Weather, and told us how he acted as a consultant to investors who were building a Ski Resort outside of State College, Pa. He told them they were buying land on the wrong side of the mountain. They ignored his advice and ended up going out of business because they spent too much time and money running artificial snow-making equipment while the other side of the mountain got very deep snows. I deer hunted Tussey Mountain several times when I lived in State College, and saw what he meant. There is such a thing as too much snow for hunting, and slogging through knee deep or waist deep snow is a coronary stress-test like no other.

What would anyone expect from Larry Clown? Once again, he shows us that he is reading my posts even though he repeatedly claims to be IGNORING them. That's why I say the IGNORE function is of no use to an estrogen filled Liberal. It is also why I continue to respond to them even after they claim to be IGNORING me. I know they can't do it. Their idea of IGNORING is no different than an angry woman on her menstrual period. She hears you... but she's just being bitchy. Right Larry?

I'm also surprised to see that Dave's grouse hunting photos all seem to show him hunting what appear to be gas or oil pipelines. I've probably walked many hundreds of miles on pipelines and powerlines in my life, and never flushed a great many grouse along them. They are useful for quicker easier access to get back in where hunting pressure is less. I always did much better in heavier cover, logged out areas and slashings, and especially in and near stands of wild grapevines. Grouse cover is variable, and the chain saw and logger is your friend. I also don't ever recall seeing many road killed grouse along Pa. Rt 6, or anywhere else for that matter. I suppose a few are stupid enough to fly or walk into the path of a truck, but I question that statement about the weekly observations of road killed grouse seen by State Forest workers.

I just saw Larry Clown logged in and reading my last post!

He says he's IGNORING me, but he can't. He must be chugging estrogen. You can't make this shit up.