Can anyone provide updates on numbers of grouse heard drumming this year versus the past. Obviously talking those hunting in National Forests or private land on western part of Va. I think where we are turkey hunting (Fredrick Co Va) the grouse numbers have pretty much crashed. Very little drumming this year in comparison to previous years.

Also in regards to posts about gobbling, I've had a rough rough year, but am not giving up. Will be out this weekend trying once again. The area I hunt has birds for sure, just have to believe they have been henned up real bad and thus have had no reason to gobble. Hoping that is now changing and am hoping the afternoon hunting may pay off.

I am not hunting in Va....but i heard a lot more grouse drumming before the Tenn season started.APr2>>than I have after it started...UNTIL the the last week when they have started drumming again..my theory..the cold temps , sub-freezing wind chills plus predation probabaly took its toll on the first nest(or some ofthem) and the birds drumming now are in response to a second nesting effort....course maybe I was not in the right placeto hear them andthey have been druming all of april...I do think rightnow is when a lot of est tenn grouse hatch in a normal year...and it needs to warm way up and stop raining right now for us to have a decent grouse hatch down here.....

i have been hunting in the westren part of scott co. va,and im pretty sure that every time i have been out this gobbler season,i have heard grouse drumming,more than i have heard in several years.

The best day I had for counting drummings was 9 different birds. But the sad thing is I found where something probably an owl killed a male with in 2 hours from a path I previously walk I was saddened over that happening and I don't even hunt this area for them. I hope we get a few decent spring for hatchings so they can have a better survival rate. Plus where I live I think the game commission is getting ready to log more land. So maybe things aren't looking so grim for MR. Ruffed

Flat out dismal in the areas TScott and I hunt. Where we usually hear a bird or two drumming, nothing. We did manage to hear two or three seperate birds drumming in a new area we were exploring. Overall, the decline continues.

Have heard nothing in Frederick Co and nothing in Hampshire Co..

I hunted with Max on May 6 and 7 in Caroll County and we heard 3 maybe 4 different grouse on a couple hundred acres of hill country. We didn't jump any but thats as many as I've heard there in a few years but I don't have an ear for them like Max does