Minnesota Grouse Opener 2012

This was the result of our opening day grouse hunt near my brother's property on the North Shore.  My brother Tom and his vizsla Ruby were doing the hunting, I was carrying brush loppers, neither were used.  Our several mile walk was more of a deer scouting mission than a hunting mission, but I thought that we would have more than a tired dog to show for it.  I figure that we walked around 3 or 4 miles through some pretty good looking grouse habitat and we only flushed one bird.  The woods were still thick and Tom never even got a shot because of the foliage.  We never settled on a spot to hang the portable stand, so I never used the loppers.  It was still a productive day since I left a nice squiggly line on my GPS, marked a few way points for likely stand locations, and got some much needed exercise.

Walk in the Deer Woods- Where are the Grouse?

I went for a short walk to check the trail camera today and saw this little critter.  I think it must be a mink, but it kind of looks like an immature fisher.  When it saw me, it scurried up about 40 feet up a tree, which is where he was when this photo was taken. With the clear sky, this was the best picture that I could get.

Here's another photo of the mink.  I think that even an immature fisher would have had a bushier tail than this.

Somebody must have found this old grub ax laying around and decided to hang it from branch by the trail.  There's always something to see in the woods.  One thing that I didn't see was a ruffed grouse.