Hey all,

Im heading up to the upper peninsula of Michigan for the firearms deer season which starts on the 15th. Ill be there a couple days early so I can scout and do some grouse hunting.I wont be using my german shorthair on this trip so Ill be hoofing it all the way. I hear there is already some snow on the ground and was wondering were do the grouse hole up when there is snow on the ground. Having never hunted grouse in snow before any info would be appreciated.I have hunted this area before and can tell you there is alot of older growth forest with some alder thickets, and cedar swamps mixed in.
Fordfreak

Popple clear cuts that are about 5 years old or aspen if that what you call it. When doing deer drives we jump a lot of grouse out of the clear cuts. I brought a comobo gun just for that 12 ga over 7x57R. Two more weeks and I'll find out how it works for that.

We spent 2 weeks in the UP in September and started opening day up there. We put on a fair number of miles, as it was my first time hunting in that area. We found a lot of good looking cover but few areas with good populations of birds. If there is not much snow they will seek cover in the evergreens in the area. If the snow gets deep enough they will actually spend the night in a snow bank, diving in on the wing to eliminate any scent trail.

We stayed in the Ottawa for most of our trip, camping from Iron River up to Baraga and back. As to where to hunt, hunt the food. Scout and find some crab apple or thorn apple trees still holding apples. The grouse usually don't wander far from their food source. If you can't find any of them, hunt the small aspens as mentioned earlier. We did managed to locate small concentrations of grouse towards the end of our trip. In the area were 100's of these apple trees.