Where can you hunt sharp-tailed grouse in Michigan?

Where to hunt sharp-tailed grouse in Michigan

Last updated 2026-09-24 · from MDNR data · 2025–26 licence year

In Michigan, sharp-tailed grouse is thin and local. Michigan's sharptail is one population in the eastern Upper Peninsula and the state hunts it — four fifths of Michigan's records fall in Chippewa and Mackinac counties, and so does the whole of the open unit. The Department of Natural Resources opens it October 10 to 31 inside the zone 1 sharp-tailed grouse management unit and nowhere else in the state, on a free stamp. The unit's boundary runs on roads and rivers inside those two counties and is not drawn in this app. Michigan's huntable public estate is 5,515,411 acres across 344 units, not filtered by species because MDNR does not publish a per-parcel list. The best-supported of them is Hiawatha National Forest: 262,649 of its 899,297 acres lie in cells where the bird is recorded. Units here are ordered by how much of each one lies in subbasins where sharp-tailed grouse is recorded at regular strength or better, not by how big the unit is. The list is also clipped to the ground MDNR opens a season on, which leaves 13 of the state's units eligible.

Where the bird is

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

Michigan's sharptail is one population in the eastern Upper Peninsula and the state hunts it — four fifths of Michigan's records fall in Chippewa and Mackinac counties, and so does the whole of the open unit. The Department of Natural Resources opens it October 10 to 31 inside the zone 1 sharp-tailed grouse management unit and nowhere else in the state, on a free stamp. The unit's boundary runs on roads and rivers inside those two counties and is not drawn in this app.

Open this map in the app

Stronghold Regular Present Occasional No records The 10 units in the table below 2 units too small to draw

22 of 59 subbasins draining Michigan carry a sharp-tailed 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.

The public units with the most recorded ground

Michigan's huntable public units. MDNR does not publish a per-parcel species list, so this is not filtered to sharp-tailed grouse.

Ordered by recorded acres — how much of each unit lies inside subbasins where sharp-tailed grouse is recorded at regular strength or better — rather than by how big the unit is. The biggest block in a state is often not in the half of it the bird is in. PAD-US splits a forest into many parcels, so acreage is summed over the unit's name, and the share is measured against the unit's drawn boundary rather than a centroid: a national forest can be two polygons across half a peninsula.

Season boundary drawn Narrowed to ground MDNR opens a season on (Zone 1 sharp-tailed grouse unit — partly open), which leaves 13 eligible units. That boundary is wider than the rule: the order bounds this unit with roads and section corners inside those counties, and the counties are the smallest ground this app can say it is somewhere inside. Being on this list is not the same as being in the unit.
Boundary: county lines (Census TIGER), which here are *not* the rule. WCO 12.751 bounds the unit with roads, rivers and section corners inside Chippewa and Mackinac counties; these two county polygons are the smallest area this app can say the unit is inside, and the feature is marked partial because of it.
Season geography read against the published rule on 2026-08-23.

Unit	Class	Recorded acres	Acres	Where the records are
Hiawatha National Forest	National forest	262,649	899,297	50% stronghold, 19% regular, 31% present
Newberry State Forest Area	State forest	71,191	348,461	6% stronghold, 94% regular
Munuscong State Wildlife Management Area	State game area	14,165	14,165	100% stronghold
Tahquamenon, Michigan Wild And Scenic River Study Area	Wild & scenic river corridor	9,106	28,776	100% regular
Carp, Michigan Wild and Scenic River	Wild & scenic river corridor	6,014	6,014	100% stronghold
Natural Area Seiner's Point	State forest	3,056	3,056	100% regular
East Branch Tahquamenon, Michigan Wild and Scenic River	Wild & scenic river corridor	2,992	2,992	100% regular
Black Creek Flooding State Wildlife Management Area	State game area	2,769	2,779	100% stronghold
Natural Area Little Brevort Lake Scenic Site	State forest	737	737	100% regular
Carp, Michigan Wild And Scenic River Study Area	Wild & scenic river corridor	559	559	100% stronghold

The whole public estate, by land class

Every huntable unit in Michigan, not the ranked ten above and not narrowed to where sharp-tailed grouse is recorded or where the season is open. It is here as the denominator the table above was drawn from.

Class	Units	Acres
National forest	21	2,879,026
State forest	64	1,817,144
State game area	211	525,385
Wild & scenic river corridor	48	293,856

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 MDNR before you park.

Within a drive of a town

The same ground read from where a reader starts rather than from the state line: the public units within forty miles of one town, ordered the same way. A town is on this list only where at least three units reach that far and hold ten thousand recorded acres between them.

The other questions

Open the hunting map →Public land and bird cover, drawn for the bird you are after.