Ruffed grouse hunting in Northern Lower Michigan

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

Ruffed grouse hunting in Northern Lower Michigan. The season runs September 15, 2025 to January 1, 2026 — 93 days afield, bag 5 per day, 10 in possession. 148 public units and 1,859,835 acres fall inside this region, the largest of them Atlanta State Forest Area at 261,158 acres. The bird is a stronghold in Michigan.

The ground
The cover
Season and limits
Public land here
Weather and timing
The place

The ground

The top third of Michigan's mitten: state forest in big continuous blocks, aspen cut on a rotation that has been running for decades, and river bottoms — the Au Sable, the Manistee, the Pere Marquette — where the alder runs down to the water. This is the most heavily hunted upland ground in the state and it still produces, because the forestry that makes the cover has not stopped.

Written for this app — not an agency description. Everything below that is a rule or a number names the source it came from.

The cover, and how it is hunted

Aspen and mixed brush between about five and twenty years old — cut-over ground rather than big timber, thick enough that you cannot see far into it. The best of it is an edge: young cut against older hardwood, or the alder seam where the cut runs down to wet ground.

Walk the edges slowly and stop often; a stopped hunter is what makes a tight bird lose its nerve. Birds hold in the thick and flush loud, and most shots are inside twenty-five yards through cover, which is why open chokes and light loads are the tradition.

A close-working flushing or pointing dog is the difference between finding birds and walking past them. Wide-ranging dogs lose birds in cover this thick.

Season and limits

MDNR's dates for the 2025–26 licence year, read from MDNR. Michigan lists this season as Ruffed grouse.

Segment	Opens	Closes	Days
Segment 1	September 15, 2025	November 14, 2025	61
Segment 2	December 1, 2025	January 1, 2026	32

Open today: Shut
Bag limit: 5 per day, 10 in possession
Hunter orange: requiredSmall game hunters must wear a hunter-orange cap, hat, vest, jacket or rain gear as the outermost garment, visible from all sides. Camouflage counts if it is at least 50% orange.
Shooting hours: One half-hour before sunrise until sunset.
Sundays: No statewide Sunday closure for small game. A few counties restrict firearm hunting on private land under PA 319 of 1994 — not mapped here.

Split season — it closes for the two weeks of firearm deer and opens again December 1.

Public land in Northern Lower Michigan

148 units and 1,859,835 acres, out of 344 huntable units in Michigan. MDNR does not publish a per-parcel species list, so this is not filtered to ruffed grouse.

Ordered by recorded acres — how much of each unit lies inside subbasins where ruffed 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.

MDNR names no geographic restriction on this season, so no unit is excluded for being outside one.
Season geography read against the published rule on 2026-08-23.

Unit	Class	Manager	Recorded acres	Acres	Where the records are
Atlanta State Forest Area	State forest	SDNR	72,678	261,158	28% regular, 72% present
Huron National Forest	National forest	USFS	62,327	436,312	14% regular, 86% present
Pigeon River Country State Forest Area	State forest	SDNR	61,340	103,170	59% regular, 41% present
Shingleton State Foreset Area	State forest	SDNR	54,418	368,105	15% regular, 85% present
Kirtland Warbler Unit Clear Lake	State forest	SDNR	15,674	19,202	82% regular, 18% present
Sturgeon, Michigan (Hiawatha Nf) Wild and Scenic River	Wild & scenic river corridor	USFS	8,393	8,393	100% regular
Wigwam Bay State Wildlife Area	State forest	SDNR	3,749	4,310	87% regular, 13% occasional
Dog Lake Flooding State Wildlife Management Area	State game area	SFW	1,577	1,638	96% regular, 4% present
Stoney Creek Flooding State Wildlife Management Area	State game area	SFW	1,149	1,149	100% regular
Natural Area Point Detour	State forest	SDNR	289	289	100% regular
Wigwam Bay State Wildlife Area 2	State forest	SDNR	49	49	100% regular
Forest Management	State forest	SDNR	15	15	100% regular

Class	Units	Acres
National forest	9	978,958
State forest	40	673,799
State game area	87	140,461
Wild & scenic river corridor	12	66,617

A region here is a bounding box — 43.5° to 45.9° north, 86.7° to 82.9° west — and not a boundary anybody drew on the ground. A unit that straddles the edge is placed by where its middle is. PAD-US says who manages a parcel, not where its line runs and not whether it carries a local closure: context, not permission. Check the unit with MDNR before you park.

Weather and timing

Early October is warm and green and hard to see through; the two weeks either side of the leaf drop, usually mid to late October, are the season. Snow arrives in November and concentrates birds in conifer edges.

The place

Grayling, Mio, Baldwin and Cadillac are the towns the season runs out of. Camps book a year ahead for the third week of October, and the state forest campgrounds fill with dog trailers.

Other regions in Michigan

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