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Spruce grouse
Falcipennis canadensis
Spruce grouse (Falcipennis canadensis) is present in 2 of the 5 states this app covers, and 1 of them sets a season for it. It is strongest in Minnesota, where it is thin and local. The longest season is Minnesota's at 107 days, September 19, 2026 to January 3, 2027.
Last updated 2026-09-24 · seasons from each state's own agency
The bird
The grouse of the black spruce and jack pine, and the one bird here that will often not flush at all — its defence is to sit still in a conifer and be a branch, which is where the old name “fool hen” comes from. It eats conifer needles through the winter, which is why it lives where it does and why it tastes of them. The male is unmistakable at any range you can see it: sooty black throat and breast bordered in white, and a comb of bare red skin over the eye.
Written for this app. Not an agency description and not a regulation — everything below this point that is a rule or a date carries the agency it was read from.
State by state
The comparison this page exists for. The band is an editorial summary of the bird's status on the same five-step scale in every state — not a population estimate — and the season is that state's own, against that state's own licence or season year, which do not line up with each other.
| State | Status | Season | Days | Bag | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan | barely present | no season | — | not published | 2025–26 |
| Minnesota | thin and local | September 19, 2026 – January 3, 2027 | 107 | not published | 2026 |
A bag this app cannot state as one number is left empty here rather than guessed. Some of these states publish none for a species; others publish one that changes by zone, or partway through the season, and no single figure would be true of the whole of it. A wrong limit is worse than a missing one, because it looks researched.
Spruce grouse in Michigan
Upper Peninsula conifer only, and protected — Michigan sets no season for it. A bird you may meet grouse hunting and may not shoot.
- Spruce grouse hunting in Michigan — the whole picture
- Regulations — Michigan
- Michigan hunting regulations
Spruce grouse in Minnesota
The far north: the Arrowhead, the Boundary Waters and the big peatlands, in black spruce and jack pine rather than in aspen. MN DNR publishes its season on the same row as ruffed grouse, so the dates match — but it is a different bird in different cover, and a hunter walking aspen cut will not meet one.
- Spruce grouse hunting in Minnesota — the whole picture
- How to hunt it — Minnesota
- When the season opens — Minnesota
- Where to hunt it — Minnesota
- Regulations — Minnesota
- Hunting report — Minnesota
- Minnesota hunting regulations
Cover and tactics
Black spruce, jack pine and tamarack — closed conifer and its edges, usually on wet or sandy ground. Aspen cut holds ruffed grouse and does not hold this bird; the two are often a few hundred yards apart and never in the same trees.
Walk conifer roads and edges and look up as much as ahead: the bird's defence is to sit still in a tree, and most are seen before they move. Birds encountered on the ground often walk rather than flush.
A dog is of limited help on a bird that will not run and will not flush. Most spruce grouse are found by eye, incidentally, while hunting something else.
Written for this app, and general to the bird rather than to a state. Where a place changes it, the regional pages below say so.
Open the hunting map →Public land and bird cover, drawn for the bird you are after.