Following a years-long dip, Minnesota’s ruffed grouse population appears to be on the upswing again.

That conclusion — welcome news to hunters — is based on results from the recently completed National Grouse and Woodcock Hunt conducted annually near Grand Rapids.

The results showed a 17 percent increase in the rate hunters shot grouse during the Oct. 13-14 hunt compared to last year. The figure almost mirrors the 18 percent increase in the state’s ruffed grouse drumming count index logged in the spring.

Those two seemingly disparate measures — hunters killing birds in the fall, and volunteers listening for wing-beating in the spring — have paralleled each other for years and helped cement evidence for the roughly 10-year population cycles that ruffed grouse in Minnesota follow. Scientists don’t fully understand why the forest-dwelling birds’ numbers rise and fall so regularly, although relationships between snowshoe hare numbers and predators are suspected as a factor.

The forest-dwelling birds have been in the trough of that cycle for several years, and the number of hunters has waned with it. As many as 95,000 or so people hunt grouse in Minnesota, the Department of Natural Resources estimates. Some 83,000 are estimated to have hunted for ruffed grouse during the 2014-2015 season, the most-recent estimate the DNR has.

Those figures are relatively stable when compared to the fluctuations in how many grouse hunters actually kill each year. Two years ago, the DNR estimated about 288,000 grouse were killed — the lowest point in the cycle — while the high-water mark was 2010, when an estimated 466,000 birds were shot. No studies have shown that hunting, under its current regulations, has a meaningful effect on grouse population levels.

The increases reported by the Ruffed Grouse Society — the group that puts on the national hunt in and around Grand Rapids — show grouse are on the upswing but hardly bountiful. The rate of hunter success — each averaged 0.86 grouse per day — is the fourth-lowest rate in the 35-year history of the event.

“These results are not surprising as we climb from the bottom of the ruffed grouse cycle,” according to a statement from the organization, which keeps detailed statistics, including not just the number of grouse shot but the number seen.

REPORTS VARY

As grouse begin their apparent recovery, hunters are reporting a range of successes — and failures — in the field. The hunting season started in September, but actual hunting participation hits its prime around now, when leaves fall off the trees and provide better sight lines for hunters to swing a shotgun as the birds zigzag away from them and their dogs.

The pattern that appears to be emerging is that central and north central Minnesota hunters are doing well, while the farther north and east one travels, fewer birds are encountered.

Here’s a sampling of recent observations from conservation officers with the Department of Natural Resources, according to DNR logs:

Kyle Quittschreiber (Blackduck): “Grouse hunters have been reporting decent success. Several hunters with full bag limits have been checked.”

Brice Vollbrecht (Bemidji): “Grouse numbers continue to increase while waterfowl numbers have decreased.”

Troy Fondie (Orr): “Grouse hunting remains poor.”

Darin Fagerman (Grand Marais) is “about ready to put the grouse season in the poor column.”

Mary Manning (Hovland): “Birds continue to be elusive.”

Anthony Bermel (Babbitt): “Grouse hunters are averaging about a bird per hunter.”

Jeff Humphrey (Cromwell): “Slow to average waterfowl week with mixed results from hunters. Grouse hunters were reporting much better success with birds being more visible.”

Mike Krauel (Princeton area): “Upland bird hunters were finding a few pheasants, but most hunters were returning with mixed bags of pheasants, grouse, and woodcock.”

WOODCOCK SUCCESS

American woodcock, a migratory bird that inhabits the same coverts as ruffed grouse, are often encountered and shot by grouse hunters.

According to the Ruffed Grouse Society’s summary of national hunt results:

“Participating hunters harvested 384 American woodcock, which is an 8 percent increase over the 2015 harvest of 357. Each hunter harvested an average of 1.9 woodcock per day in 2016 compared to 1.7 in 2015. Based upon the calculated results, the index to reproductive success for American woodcock was on par with the long-term average.”