• Join / Renew
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
RGS

RGS

Healthy Forests, Abundant Wildlife, Conservation Ethic

  • Grouse & Woodcock
    • Grouse Facts
    • Woodcock Facts
    • Woodcock Migration Map
    • Hunting Tips
    • State by State Hunting
  • Conservation
    • Habitat
    • Habitat Maps
  • Membership
    • Join/Renew
    • Chapters
  • Events
  • R3 Programs
    • Hunter Mentor Program
    • Women’s Intro To Wingshooting
  • Blog
    • Read
    • Watch
    • Listen
  • Store
  • About Us
    • About RGS
    • Contact RGS
    • Board of Directors
    • RGS & AWS Staff
    • Employment
    • Media
    • FAQs
    • Financial Information
You are here: Home / Archives for forests

forests

C’mon President Trump . . . #FixOurForest

March 23, 2018 by Brent Rudolph

By Brent A. Rudolph, Ph.D., RGS & AWS Director of Conservation Policy

A number of provisions favorable to hunters and healthy forests await the President’s signature later today…

Pen (2560x2560) (1280x1280)

On December 1, we released a National Update, asking our supporters to ask Congress for a budgetary fix to help the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) deal with out of control annual fire suppression costs. On January 12, we followed up right here on the RGS/AWS blog, identifying a number of provisions that could address the “fire borrowing” problem, including passing the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act (WDFA), H.R. 2862 and S. 1842.

[Read more…] about C’mon President Trump . . . #FixOurForest

Filed Under: Action Alert, Habitat, Hunting, Read Tagged With: American Woodcock Society, fixourforest, forests, grouse hunting, habitat, national forests, ruffed grouse, ruffed grouse society, wildlife, Woodcock, woodcock hunting

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE – Stay Focused on Habitat

January 17, 2018 by Ruffed Grouse Society

RGS Mag Pres Msg Fall 2017

When I hunt grouse and woodcock next fall, I want to better clear my mind of all things occupying my thoughts . . .  I want to stay focused on what I’m doing . . . I want to stay focused on hunting, and when I do, I pick up little cues from the surrounding habitat, I pay closer attention to the dog work, I react to flushes better and shoot straighter, and I’m quite sure you’ve made a similar observation. Staying focused helps us enjoy all the hunt has to offer and gives us a much more fulfilling and satisfying hunting experience regardless of whether we bring back any birds at the end of the day.

[Read more…] about PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE – Stay Focused on Habitat

Filed Under: Grouse Ecology, Habitat, Hunting, Read, Wildlife Ecology Tagged With: american woodcock, American Woodcock Society, clearcut, forest, forest habitat, forest management, forests, Grouse, grouse hunting, habitat, ruffed grouse, ruffed grouse society, upland hunting, west nile virus, Woodcock, woodcock hunting, young forest habitat, young forests

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE – Pause to Reflect

December 20, 2017 by Ruffed Grouse Society

Cover image

It won’t be long before it’s time for us to think about New Year’s resolutions. Personally, I’ve never really taken this practice very seriously, but I know a lot of people who do. I can see some value in making promises to ourselves at the beginning of every year aimed at making some change for the better or improving some aspect of our lives. To me it’s another form of goal-setting . . . so why confine that activity to just one day of the year?

[Read more…] about PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE – Pause to Reflect

Filed Under: Events, Habitat, Hunting, Mentored Hunting, President's Message, Read, Wildlife Ecology Tagged With: american woodcock, American Woodcock Society, forest habitat, forests, Grouse, grouse camp, Grouse Camp Tour, grouse hunting, habitat, maine, massachusetts, national forests, new england, new hampshire, new york, orvis, Project Upland, ruffed grouse, ruffed grouse society, SportDOG, vermont, woodcock hunting

GROUSE CAMP TOUR STARTS TODAY!

October 21, 2017 by Ruffed Grouse Society

NEW YORK & NEW ENGLAND

2017 GROUSE CAMP TOUR

October 21 – 29

#grousecamptour

2017-page-GCT-logo

“There is an old New England saying to the effect that if you give a man a shotgun, a bird dog and a violin, he won’t amount to a damn.”

 ~William Harnden Foster ~

Join the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society for the third Grouse Camp Tour, where we celebrate habitat, membership, volunteers and the grouse/woodcock hunting experience. This year’s Tour will be throughout the New York and New England region: New York Grouse & Woodcock Benefit Hunt – Malone, NY, Vermont, Western Massachusetts and Southern Maine.

[Read more…] about GROUSE CAMP TOUR STARTS TODAY!

Filed Under: Dogs, Events, Gear Reviews, Grouse Camp Tour, Habitat, Hunting, Uncategorized Tagged With: american woodcock, American Woodcock Society, forest habitat, forests, Grouse, grouse camp, Grouse Camp Tour, grouse hunting, habitat, maine, massachusetts, national forests, new england, new hampshire, new york, orvis, Project Upland, ruffed grouse, ruffed grouse society, SportDOG, vermont, woodcock hunting

WHY WE HUNT, Member Drew Phipps

July 21, 2017 by Ruffed Grouse Society

” . . . it is disturbing to me that there are so few grouse left in the woods here. I often wonder if I will be the last person to walk some of the coverts I hunt. I wonder how many before me have had the same thought? I take hope in the fact that there are still a few folks with dogs fighting the laurel and would like to see more of those people in the future.”

Phipps 3

***

I was asked by a friend a few weeks ago if I enjoyed failure. This was shortly after I recounted the highlights of last year’s West Virginia grouse season. I laughed it off at the time, but it does make me wonder, after a season of several hundred miles of walking and no birds taken . . .  was it worth it? My answer now and I hope always is: absolutely. The reason I hunt grouse has nothing to do with birds in hand. I hunt grouse because I’m an adrenaline junkie. I have yet to find a sensation that can match the electric moment just before a flush. The moment when dog, man and bird are all awaiting the same release.

[Read more…] about WHY WE HUNT, Member Drew Phipps

Filed Under: Dogs, Hunting, Read, Why We Hunt Tagged With: american woodcock, American Woodcock Society, appalachia, forest habitat, forests, Grouse, grouse hunting, habitat, hunting, national forests, ruffed grouse, ruffed grouse society, southern appalachia, west virginia, Woodcock, woodcock hunting, young forest habitat, young forests

WHY WE HUNT, Member Jim Gray

July 5, 2017 by Ruffed Grouse Society

I might have arrived late to the grouse hunting scene, but I am determined to do everything I can to “pay it forward” and leave it in better shape than I found it.

RGSCamp2016 (109 of 256) (1024x684)

Why do I hunt? I really didn’t have any choice, and I have been eternally grateful. My dad was a quail hunter. He started taking me when I was four or five years old. When I got too tired, he carried me on his shoulders. We hunted the sand hill scrub and pine/palmetto woods of Florida. I got my first shotgun, a JC Higgins .410 single shot for Christmas when I was 10. About that time, quail hunting lands began getting scarce as the hills and pine woods of Central Florida were bulldozed for orange groves. So, we shifted to dove and duck hunting.

[Read more…] about WHY WE HUNT, Member Jim Gray

Filed Under: Dogs, Grouse Camp Tour, Hunting, Read, Why We Hunt Tagged With: american woodcock, American Woodcock Society, early successional forest, forest habitat, forests, Grouse, grouse hunting, hunting, National forest, national forests, ruffed grouse, ruffed grouse society, Woodcock, woodcock hunting, young forest, young forest habitat

THE LITTLE THINGS – EDITOR NOTE

June 29, 2017 by Ruffed Grouse Society

The thought of losing the little things we love about grouse and woodcock hunting reveals truly what’s at stake for the future of our sporting traditions if we don’t strive to create healthy forests now.

RGSCamp2016 (46 of 256) (2560x1710)

On a Friday evening this past February, I rounded into the entryway of my home and spied my blaze hunting vest hanging on the wall in the same place I had  it after every hunt since September. I stood there for a moment while numerous memories from October and November flooded through my mind and honestly felt sad knowing the season was over. That unfortunate and inevitable time had come to put it away until next year.

[Read more…] about THE LITTLE THINGS – EDITOR NOTE

Filed Under: Habitat, Hunting, Uncategorized Tagged With: american woodcock, American Woodcock Society, forest, forest habitat, forests, Grouse, grouse hunting, habitat, rgs, rgs magazine, ruffed grouse, ruffed grouse society, ruffed grouse society magazine, Woodcock, woodcock hunting, young forest habitat

WHY WE HUNT, Member Payton Gunby

May 31, 2017 by Ruffed Grouse Society

I grouse hunt because it’s in my DNA. Surprisingly, it doesn’t have to be passed down through genetics. Take a stroll through the grouse woods and you might find it quickly imprinted in yours.

18643699_10210917671870523_1686915684_n

The story of grouse hunting for me starts somewhere in the Deep South . . . in a part of Georgia, oddly enough, where there are no grouse. I’m still a third generation bird hunter – Every winter from December to the middle of January, we hunt the bird every grouse hunter knows: woodcock.

At a young age I was always with the bird dogs in the kennels until I was old enough to go and watch, then shoot. Prior to grouse hunting, I had hunted quail, chukar, pheasant and woodcock. Most of my hunting was with my dad, so grouse was the only bird he had hunted that I hadn’t. He made his first trip to grouse country a couple years before I did. The bird dogs are my world, and when I found another game bird to hunt, I wanted to burst with excitement.

[Read more…] about WHY WE HUNT, Member Payton Gunby

Filed Under: Dogs, Hunting, Read, Why We Hunt Tagged With: american woodcock, American Woodcock Society, aws, bird dogs, bird hunting, dogs, forest, forests, Grouse, grouse dogs, grouse hunting, gun dogs, habitat, hunting, national forests, rgs, ruffed grouse, ruffed grouse society, upland hunting, Woodcock, woodcock hunting, young forests

PUBLIC LANDS, ACCESS & THINKING LONG TERM

March 31, 2017 by Meadow Kouffeld

By Meadow Kouffeld, RGS & AWS Regional Wildlife Biologist

Despite the current negative state and federal climate toward public land holding, RGS and partners are working with government agencies to reverse this trend.

DSC_9790 (848x1280)
RGS member Tracy Lee hunts with her English setter puppy on public land during the RGS National Grouse and Woodcock Hunt near Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

Coming from the West, I appreciate public land. The nature of our western big game requires that large tracts of land are available to support populations substantial enough for hunters to pursue. Huntable numbers of mule deer, blacktails, bighorn sheep, moose, caribou, mountain goats and elk don’t occupy 40-acre stands of trees in seas of corn. Very few people have the financial wherewithal to own thousands of western acres, however America’s greatness comes from our ability to enjoy the great outdoors, hunting and fishing notwithstanding personal wealth.

[Read more…] about PUBLIC LANDS, ACCESS & THINKING LONG TERM

Filed Under: Grouse Ecology, Habitat, Hunting, Uncategorized Tagged With: american woodcock, American Woodcock Society, clearcut, cutting trees, forest, forest habitat, forest management, forests, Grouse, grouse hunting, habitat, hunting, public, public lands, ruffed grouse, ruffed grouse society, Woodcock, woodcock hunting

THEY SAID IT! . . . Best Quotes from the Spring RGS Magazine

February 27, 2017 by Ruffed Grouse Society

THEY SAID IT! . . . Best Quotes from the Spring RGS Magazine

By Matt Soberg

Are you an upland hunter?  Bird dog owner? Shotgun lover?

Have you become afflicted by the grouse and woodcock hunting addiction? Do you care about the future of our sporting traditions?

If you answer “yes” to any of the above, the Ruffed Grouse Society magazine is a must see – a one stop shop for everything grouse and woodcock hunting and forest habitat conservation – hunting tips, bird dog info, gun reviews, book reviews, cooking recipes, classic hunting stories, habitat management information . . . the list goes on and on.

[Read more…] about THEY SAID IT! . . . Best Quotes from the Spring RGS Magazine

Filed Under: Dogs, Gear Reviews, Grouse Ecology, Habitat, Hunting, Mentored Hunting, Uncategorized, Wildlife Ecology, Woodcock Ecology Tagged With: american woodcock, American Woodcock Society, bird dogs, birds, dogs, forests, Grouse, grouse hunting, habitat, healthy forests, hunting, magazine, ruffed grouse, ruffed grouse society, ruffed grouse society magazine, shotguns, sporting traditions, Woodcock, woodcock hunting

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to Next Page »

Footer

© 2019 • Ruffed Grouse Society &
American Woodcock Society

Shop the RGS Store

  • Grouse/Woodcock
    • Grouse Facts
    • Woodcock Facts
    • Woodcock Migration Map
    • Hunting Tips
    • State by State Hunting
  • Conservation
    • Habitat
    • Habitat Maps
  • Membership
    • Join RGS
    • Renew your Membership
    • Chapters
  • About Us
    • About RGS
    • Contact RGS
    • RGS Blog
    • Board of Directors
    • RGS & AWS Staff
    • Corporate Partners
    • Media
    • FAQs
    • Financial Information
    • Policies