BirdTrout

Ruffed grouse Hunting in Minnesota

Bonasa umbellus

Open September 19, 2026 to January 3, 2027 — 107 days afield. In Minnesota it is a stronghold.

Last updated 2026-08-24 · from MN DNR data · 2026 season year

The bird
Where it is
Season and limits
Where to hunt it
Hours, orange and licences
The questions
Other states

The bird

The upland bird of the northern hardwoods — a chicken-sized woodland grouse that holds tight and flushes loud. It lives in young aspen and mixed brush between about five and twenty years old, which is why grouse country is cut-over country rather than big timber. Look for the black neck ruff it is named for and the broad dark band across the end of the fanned tail.

Written for this app. Not an agency description and not a regulation — everything below this point that is a rule carries the page it was read from.

Where it is in Minnesota

a stronghold An editorial summary of the bird's status in this state — not a population estimate and not a survey.

The other Great Lakes stronghold, and the state that reports the biggest harvest in the country most years. Aspen cut across the northern forest and the Arrowhead carries it; MN DNR called the population into the declining phase of its cycle in July 2026, which is where in the ten-year swing it sits rather than a reason not to go.

Open this map in the app

Stronghold Regular Present Occasional No records The 10 units in the table below

45 of 72 subbasins draining Minnesota carry a ruffed grouse record. Observed occurrences, not a range map and not a habitat model. Scored as a share of all bird records in the same cell, so a well-watched county does not read as better bird country than an unwatched one. The mesh is the subbasin — the unit this app scores in — and not the state line, so its edge is a drainage divide rather than a border. The green is the 10 public units in the table below, drawn as PAD-US records their boundaries: context, not permission.

Season and limits

MN DNR's own dates for the 2026 season year, read from MN DNR. Minnesota lists this season as Ruffed grouse.

Segment	Opens	Closes	Days
Statewide	September 19, 2026	January 3, 2027	107

Bag limit: not shown No single bag limit is shown for it here. Where MN DNR publishes one that changes by zone or partway through the season, the figures are in the notes below and this page will not pick one of them; where it publishes none at all, this page leaves it empty rather than guess — a wrong limit is worse than a missing one, because it looks researched. Check the Minnesota Hunting and Trapping Regulations.
Hunter orange: required

Minnesota requires blaze orange or blaze pink while a firearms deer season is in progress, and it applies to small game hunters too. Treat orange as required for the whole season: missing it during gun deer season is the dangerous error. We have not been able to confirm the exact wording against MN DNR — read the regulations before relying on the detail.
MN DNR publishes no bag limit we could confirm for this season, so none is shown.
Statewide. MN DNR reported ruffed grouse in the declining phase of the population cycle in July 2026, which is a cycle position and not a season restriction.

Where to hunt it

Minnesota's huntable public land, whole. MN DNR does not publish a per-parcel species list, so this is not filtered to ruffed grouse — it is every unit this app draws as legal to hunt.

Class	Units	Acres
State forest	119	3,342,013
National forest	4	3,233,935
Wildlife management area	959	1,067,345
Total	1,082	7,643,293

PAD-US says who manages a parcel, not where its boundary runs on the ground and not whether a unit carries a local closure. Context, not permission — check the unit with MN DNR before you park.

Hours, orange and licences

Shooting hours

not carried

MN DNR publishes Minnesota's small game shooting hours in the hunting regulations booklet rather than as a sentence on a page this build reads, and this app holds no copy of it. We do not retype it from memory: the states on this site do not agree with each other about when the day ends — Michigan closes at sunset, Virginia a half-hour after it — so a rule carried across a state line is exactly how a hunter gets a citation. Read the booklet before opening day. MN DNR

Licences

Small game licence
Everyone hunting small game — Bought through MN DNR's licence system, and what the stamps below are added to.
Firearms safety certificate
Anyone born after 31 December 1979 — Or an apprentice hunter validation, which Minnesota limits to a small number of seasons in a lifetime rather than allowing indefinitely.
Federal HIP registration
Woodcock and every other migratory bird — Free registration with the federal harvest survey, and it lapses every season.
Small game surcharge and stamps
Varies by bird — Minnesota attaches its own validations to some birds — the pheasant stamp is the one an upland hunter meets first. Which ones your licence needs is on MN DNR's licence page; this app does not carry the ladder.

The questions under this one

A page each, because each one is its own search. This page is the whole picture; those answer one thing and show the rows behind the answer.