(calm music) - [Bret] It can be argued that among hunters, the Minnesota state bird is wrongly chosen.

(loon calling) While the lonesome call of the loon echoing across the northern Minnesota Lake is iconic, there may be no bird more revered in the Northwoods than the quirky ruffed grouse.

The ruffed grouse is a favorite among upland hunters for a variety of reasons.

(upbeat music) The challenge, grouse hunting can be, well, easy at times, but most diehard grouse hunters head deep into the thickest parts of the woods where even if a bird flushes, it's usually flying safely, hidden among the branches of the dense forest.

The taste.

If you are fortunate enough to tuck a ruffed grouse into your game bag, they're considered the greatest table fare of all the upland game birds.

But ask any veteran of young Aspen thickets and they'll tell you that they're just as happy seeing or hearing the birds flush as they are when they pull the trigger.

- When you go out, especially with the purist, it's measured in flushes.

It's not what you shoot, it's what you flush and what you saw that day.

Whether you saw anything or you just enjoyed a stroll in the woods.

Just shooting the bird is kind of a bonus I guess.

But yeah, grouse hunters are, they're a little bit different.

- Jared Olafson is the co-chair of the Lake of the Woods chapter of the Ruffed Grouse Society.

We'd be hunting with him, Chuck Lindner, and Joe Henry in the Beltrami Island State Forest just south of Warroad.

What is this trail right here?

What are we expecting?

- Hopefully we find some grouse.

It runs for about eight miles straight down and back.

Cuts through a lot of diverse cover, so hoping there's some grouse for us on there.

- All right, well it's nice and wide.

We're gonna bring Tiny, and I don't know, I'm gonna bring Mika along.

She's a little beat up, but if this is a pretty easy walking trail?

- [Jared] Pretty easy.

- [Bret] We got a little bit of snow to deal with, but let's go see if we can find some birds.

- [Jared] Sounds good.

(upbeat music) - The walking trails have been around for a long time, in the last 10 years or so, we've done a big push to further develop those trails, expand that trail system a lot more.

So in the last 10 years, we've really been busy with it.

- So we're coming up on another gate here.

Is this another access to get onto these or is there just gates?

- [Jared] Another access point to get onto it.

So there's ATV trails that run through, and then once in a while, our grouse trails intersect those, so there's multiple jump on and jump off points.

- [Bret] And the grouse trails is non-motorized?

- [Jared] Correct.

- [Bret] They don't open up for snowmobiles or anything?

- [Jared] Nope.

(dog panting) - [Bret] How you doing, old lady?

You're doing good, aren't you?

- I like what RGS does.

I've always been a grouse hunter, and RGS, especially the local chapter, they give back to this area a lot.

So seemed like a good organization to join.

Like this would be decent in here with, you got your Aspens, your little transition zone.

- [Bret] Well, maybe I'll cut in with the dog a little bit.

- Gotta do a big swoop up in there.

As you can see.

There is ruffed grouse, spruce grouse, and sharp tail.

Sharp tail, obviously a little tougher to get.

There is some isolated pockets in the woods, but they've kind of migrated towards that egg land.

Spruce grouse is one of those bucket list grouse.

And then ruffed grouse, they're everywhere out here.

You'd probably be Bret's luck if right now a spruce grouse steps out right in front of us on the path.

(upbeat music) - This is a big wild country, obviously good ruffed grouse habitat.

Having some accessibility like these hunter walking trails and some of these other roads and paths that run through these trees really open up this area for guys that wanna go hunt.

- Yeah, absolutely.

There's campgrounds that are all accessible pretty much by any type of vehicle.

And then you have old logging roads that you can still get down with a Jeep.

You have ATV specific trails, some side-by-side specific trails.

And then you have hunter walking trails.

(gentle music) - And how we work with the local community and anybody that's interested, it's a great way to memorialize someone that hunted Beltrami, loved Beltrami.

So they'll work with us, we'll pick out that nice location for a hunter walking trail.

We can usually do about a mile of trail for around $1,500 now.

And it's all volunteer labor, it's all rented equipment.

We'll come in with our crew, get some high school kids to help.

We'll do all the work and present that family with a nice memento of all the work that was done on their trail, a little piece of history that they can keep with them.

- It was hilarious.

- Do you remember that?

- I do.

- That was something else.

- He looks like he might be a little birdie.

Good boy.

Well before we have snow, in the earlier part, we'll see woodcock in some of these alders.

There's some low areas in here.

Good boy.

We're up here on the Canadian border, kinda on the northern fringe of woodcock habitat, some excellent ruffed grouse habitat.

And we as a chapter, we were lucky to have a great relationship with the DNR and start to do some habitat projects, and more specifically some hunter walking trails.

Those trails have flourished into what we call the Star of the North trail.

When that's all networked together, it'll be over 70 miles of hunter walking trail.

Some of it is ATV friendly.

We try to be pedestrian, if people wanna hike it, if people want to bike it, obviously it'd be more of an off-road bike.

We try to keep it well groomed and manicured, but we've been lucky to have that relationship, create good habitat projects, and even like where we're standing right now, you see some older stuff with some younger stuff.

We're on a trail.

This is prime prime ruffed grouse habitat and I would certainly give a shout out to how well our forests are managed up here.

(gentle music continues) - That's one of the things that you guys are talking about is how the birds, when it snows, will spend so much more time in the trees.

So you really do have to look up a lot, don't you, and look for the trees.

- Absolutely.

You do.

My advice is we start moving back to the vehicle.

I'm not super encouraged by this.

We can go through these pines, see if we bust something through that.

(upbeat music) - Grouse!

After hearing a few flushes earlier in the day, I finally got to see a grouse.

Dang it, dang it, dang it.

Well, there's our bird.

Well one just flushed right here.

- [Chuck] I thought I heard it come my way.

- Yeah, it flew back straight back that way.

- I was yelling.

- Yeah.

I don't know if he moved at all, but he was sitting right on the edge of it right here.

- [Chuck] You want try to go back for him?

- I mean, hard to say how far he went.

I lost him after he got into the trees right here.

But I mean, it's a bird.

Usually I chase roosters when I see them like that.

- [Chuck] Yeah, let's do it then.

- After discussing it with Chuck, we decided to turn around and go back after it.

(upbeat music continues) Here it is.

(gunshot firing) I did not hit it.

I did not.

He flew back the other way now.

Well hey, we found him.

It was one of those quick shots you take at a grouse sometimes in the thick woods, but.

If you blink, you'll miss it.

Got to pull the trigger.

Saw him fly that way.

We'll chase him back that way.

- [Chuck] Now to me, this is where they might go to roost at night.

But.

Eat these buds, who knows?

They could be in this lowland brush too.

- [Bret] Even when the hunting is tough, the Northwoods provides.

- [Chuck] I see a piece of Chaga.

Try not to make this an ER visit.

Yeah, that's good stuff.

- [Bret] Chaga is a fungus commonly found on birch and other trees.

It resembles burnt charcoal and is considered medicinal by a lot of people, with most grating it into a fine powder and brewing it like tea.

- Good boy, put 'em up.

(bell ringing) I heard one, there it is.

- Got to our right, huh?

- It was right, yeah.

It went through.

- I didn't see it.

- Barely went through this opening.

- [Jared] Where'd it get up from?

- I think it was in one of these pine trees.

- [Bret] So could be another one in there, right?

- [Jared] Dogs.

You know, it's funny.

Dogs figure it out too, right?

It's always a different game for them, as they find out what that habitat is that they like, they start to hone in on that themselves.

- [Jared] Well let's face it, this year has been a banner year for grouse up here.

- [Chuck] Yes.

- [Jared] It's tougher when it snows obviously.

And we hit it a little bit late, like they said, you should have been here 10 days ago when there was no snow.

But hey, we got our plans made, so we're still after it and it's still fun.

- [Chuck] It is fun, and yes, there's less activity in the forest.

It's still pre-deer season.

- I mean if you stop here and just look at the pines, look at the snow in the pine.

This is like a Christmas photo.

Like a Christmas card.

- 100%.

- It's gorgeous, isn't it?

(gentle music) Here's a squirrel going back there.

- [Bret] Hey, you think you could put a trail in here quick?

(gunshot firing) I don't think I hit him, but, if I did, he'd be right around here.

Dang, that was wild.

You know, we're right about at the end of the day here, Chuck just put a bird up over there.

I heard him yell and that thing came ripping through these ponds, dipping and diving sideways.

And I took a kind of a hail mary shot because that's about all you get in here.

- [Chuck] I walked by it and I turned and I saw it get up and flush all at one moment.

It was about 12 feet up.

I almost was able to get my gun up.

- All of a sudden I heard him yell and I'm like, oh, I look and he's like (vocalizing) And he's like, (yelling) ka-pow!

- It's so cool when you see them doing their thing, their heads are up.

- I mean it was like the pictures, like he came like this and then banked.

So it was just like belly and wings.

- Like a fighter pilot.

- Yeah, exactly.

All right man.

It's been a wild experience out here chasing ruffed grouse around, and maybe even some spruces in there too.

And Dan didn't get a chance to hunt this time.

He was working hard behind the camera.

We walked through some thick stuff.

I'm not jealous of him having to be the camera guy on this hunt.

It was a tough one out there.

But guys, this is some really nice habitat out here.

- It really is.

And diverse.

We saw some birds, unfortunately we didn't connect, but the last one was probably the most exciting one.

- You know, as most ruffed grouse hunters will tell you, it's more about the flushes than the shooting anyway.

And I don't know, we put up a dozen birds or so plus a woodcock.

So it was fun.

- Absolutely.

It was a good day.

It really was.

And anytime you can be in the woods exercising and enjoying what northern Minnesota has to offer, it's a great day.

(upbeat music)