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How to hunt sharp-tailed grouse in Michigan
Last updated 2026-09-24 · from MDNR data · 2025–26 licence year
Sharp-tailed grouse in Michigan is hunted in open brushland. Walk the open ground and expect flushes well out; birds hold poorly once the season is a week old and often go up in a bunch and fly a long way. Early season, before they pack, is the only time they sit. Mark where the flock lands and walk it again rather than following singles. Dogs are legal for this species in Michigan. Michigan's 2025–26 sharp-tailed grouse season runs October 10, 2025 to October 31, 2025, on dates that depend on the zone.
The cover
Open brushland — grass and low scrub with scattered clumps of aspen or willow, bog margin, and the pine barrens where sand keeps the timber from closing in. It is the opposite of grouse cover: if you cannot see a long way, you are in the wrong place.
How it is hunted
Walk the open ground and expect flushes well out; birds hold poorly once the season is a week old and often go up in a bunch and fly a long way. Early season, before they pack, is the only time they sit. Mark where the flock lands and walk it again rather than following singles.
Dogs
A wide-ranging pointing dog is the right tool here — the ground is open enough to use one, and covering it on foot without a dog finds very little.
- Dogs legal
- Yes, for this species in Michigan.
- Dogs closed
- April 16 – July 7
- Dog training
- July 8 – April 15. The closed season needs a DNR Wildlife Division permit.
Equipment
- Legal devices
- Bow, Crossbow, Firearm, Slingshot
- Gauge
- not regulated
- Choke
- not regulated
- Shot
- not regulated
- Capacity
- Six shells in barrel and magazine combined for a semi-automatic, unless it is .22-caliber or smaller rimfire.
- Prohibited: Snares, traps, cages, nets, pitfalls or deadfalls
- Prohibited: Spears, fully automatic firearms, airbows, or mechanical devices other than bows, crossbows, firearms and slingshots
- Prohibited: Cartridges containing tracer or explosive bullets
- Prohibited: Drugs, poisons, anticoagulants, stupefying substances, smoke, gas or explosives
Read from 2026 Michigan Small Game Hunting Regulations Summary, Equipment regulations pp. 34-38, Hunting methods pp. 40-42.
The cover, tactics and dog notes above are written for this app — not an agency description and not a regulation. Everything that is a rule carries the page it was read from.
The other questions
- When does Michigan's 2025–26 sharp-tailed grouse season open?
- Where to hunt sharp-tailed grouse in Michigan
- Michigan sharp-tailed grouse regulations, 2025–26
- Michigan sharp-tailed grouse hunting report
- Sharp-tailed grouse hunting in Michigan — the whole picture
- Sharp-tailed grouse — biology, range and how it is hunted