Brad Dokken: Fall is going by fast, so get out and enjoy
Oct. 21—GRAND FORKS — Yikes! Fall is half over. Maybe more than half over, judging by the low temperatures the area saw earlier this week and the snow that fell in some areas late last week.
It was a balmy 13 degrees when I wrote this Tuesday morning.
For me, at least, fishing has been more of a highlight than hunting so far this fall. No surprise, that, considering I've done more of it and think myself much more proficient as a fisherman than as a hunter.
I tend to be more successful, at least.
Colleague John Myers of the Duluth News Tribune wrote a story last weekend looking at Minnesota's ruffed grouse season, to date.
The focus was on northeast Minnesota, and the consensus in that part of the state was that ruffed grouse hunting has been quite good in some areas, but spottier in others.
The reports in that story didn't go beyond Grand Rapids, though.
In northwest Minnesota where I hunt, reports have been more spotty than favorable. That's been the case in my experience — which admittedly is limited — as well, though I'm hoping that changes after I get the opportunity to spend more time in the woods later this week.
So far, at least, the ratio of birds to miles walked hasn't been particularly favorable.
"Grouse hunting success is not great," Ben Huener, a conservation officer for the Department of Natural Resources in Roseau, Minnesota, wrote in the latest weekly report from DNR Enforcement.
I messaged with Charlie Tucker, manager of Red Lake Wildlife Management Area at Norris Camp south of Roosevelt, Minnesota, last week for an update, and his report was similar.
Spring drumming counts were up, but as has so often been the case in recent years, that hasn't translated into more birds in the forest once hunting season rolls around.
"I'm a little puzzled at why we're not seeing more birds," Tucker wrote in an email. "I thought that despite the spring floods that we had good conditions later in the season for nesting, hatching and brood rearing. But things seem to be a little slow out there. I'm seeing mostly adult birds, and few family groups early in the season.
"The public is reporting similar experiences — seeing some birds, but a little bit slow."
This may be of little relevance to readers in North Dakota, perhaps, where the pheasant is king of upland game birds in the fall, but I grew up in ruffed grouse country. It's what I did growing up pretty much every day after I got off the schoolbus in the fall, and it's what I continue to do as often as possible.
It's what I know.
Every walk down some of those familiar trails brings back memories of long-ago days when hunting excursions brought fewer aches and pains. If only for an hour or two, I'm back in school again, back in a time when life held fewer problems and challenges than it does today.
That's a pretty darn good place to be every once in a while.
There's something about being in the woods on a crisp fall day that borders on magical, even if birds are scarce. And with the abundance of
public land available in northern Minnesota,
hunters don't lack for options.
That also is part of the attraction.
From what I can tell, ruffed grouse reports improve the farther east you go, even in northwest Minnesota. Nicholas Prachar, a DNR conservation officer who covers the Blackduck North station, reports "steady grouse hunting activity" in that area.
The cold snap that descended early this week should have lifted by the time you read this, with highs in the 60s predicted for Saturday and Sunday in Grand Forks. That's going to feel downright balmy after the past few days.
Regardless of your outdoors passion — whether it's hunting, fishing, hiking or something else — take advantage of these fall days and squeeze every bit of enjoyment you can out of them.
They go by fast — much too fast.
