WI Grouse & Woodcock

charliebravo77

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 4, 2014
Messages
226
Location
Chicago Area
Spent a few days Up Nort' in the Northwoods of Wisconsin looking for grouse and woodcock with two friends, one of their dads and family friend. The one friend, his dad and family friend have been hunting the general area for about 30 years and have seen a wide range of population changes and success with upland birds. This year wasn't bad, they got a good number of woodcock and a few grouse before I got up there. Three of them spent almost the entire month of October up there hunting.

The big difference vs my usual hunting trips is that this is a very casual affair with really short trips into the field, usually a total of ~4 hours a day broken into a morning hunt and afternoon hunt since the dogs can't run all day long. A couple of walks in the woods a day and sitting around a fire for the remainder of the time is hard to beat. I did get my first woodcock on the trip (and my only bird while up there) so that was a fun addition.

As per usual, I took a bunch of photos. Probably should/could have taken more but oh well.

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Rosie
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Norman
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Frankie
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Gunner
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Went through a LOT of wood.

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Managed a few good walks in the woods with a gun.

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LOTS of wolf scat on the trails where we were hunting, didn't see any though. G48 mag for scale.

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And some bear scat for good measure.

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Fueled by cosmic brownies.

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One of the hardest aspects of this kind of hunting is navigating the dense aspens and alders while also being able to swing a shotgun around.

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Frankie trying to keep my woodcock.

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Woodcock popper things, delicious. Marinated, then wrapped in bacon with a thick slice of onion and grilled.

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Used to hunt the Checameguan out of Hayward with Mark, Randy, and the Classic Bird Hunt team. Good times. A good pointing dog is priceless.
 
Woodcock flight was intense the past few days. Kicked up 8 on a short walk to my stand yesterday afternoon in the rain, none today.

I did get out for a short walk for them yesterday, got two in about a half hour. So much fun!
 
I haven't seen many grouse or woodcock in southern Rusk County this year.
 

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