What's your trip?

[uplandchessies]

So, is anyone planning any out-of-state bird hunting trips this season? I originally had plans to go to for the North Dakota pheasant opener, but a buddy had to cancel. The new plans are to go for the grouse (sharptails and prairie chickens) opener in South Dakota (flying) and hit Montana (Huns, sharptails and sage grouse)--while there. Then it's off to Michigan (driving) for ruffed grouse and woodcock. This is all going to take place in an eleven day period! Had the ND trip not fallen through--there would have been about a month between trips. It will be rough, but it's better than work!

[grouseguy]

I've got two weeks scheduled, beginning October 5th in northern Wisconsin for ruffed grouse and woodcock. Preliminary reports are that grouse are still declining towards their cyclical lows, but hopefully we can catch a decent flight of woodcock. I'll be taking two 7 month old english setter pups, in addition to the regular veterans, and I'd like to get some easy opportunities for them on wild birds.

[uplandchessies]

I've never hunted WI, but know people that due. If it's like they say--you should have no problem getting your dogs on birds--especially if the woodcock are in.

Good luck and have a safe trip.

By the way--take it easy on the woodcock, so they can make it to KY (haha).

[grouseguy]

WI is a lot like MI in that success is mostly determined by what stage of the 10 year cycle you're at. I've spent 30+ weeks over the last 14 years hunting WI. This year or next should be the bottom of the cycle and you should expect 8 - 20 flushes per day on grouse. At the peak, you can expect 25 - 50 flushes per day. However, there are not a lot of resident woodcock, so annual success is mainly determined by weather and the calendar to determine the timing of the migration. Given the time we'll be there (early to mid October), if we can catch some northerly fronts moving through (north to south) with clear nights, the flights of woodcock can sometimes be fabulous or if the weather is bad, you may go several days without even moving a woodcock.

[GSP]

I've hunted Kansas the past 5 years. I'm not going this year. The quail were wipped out year before last.
I'm going to try hunting KY.

[Birdman]

I hope to leave Oct. 16th and spend 10 days hunting in Minn. Like Grouseguy said, birds are down but they still have more birds than we do, probably because they work on their habitat<img src=icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>. Taking one old dog and a two year old. Hope to get in Mich. in Dec. not sure yet. Hope both of you brake a leg.