West/Central U.P Bird Report

[MallardMaster]

Well, I just got back last night from a 3-day weekend up in the UP bird hunting. Things were not quite what I expected, but they were worth the time & effort put forth. The final tally was 9 Pats & 9 Doodles. Not real good, I expected better. The problem was the the guns were not shooting straight :lol:!! The birds were there, and I would have to agree that there is an up-swing (contrary to what others might say). The best thing about it was that we hardly ran into any other hunters. We saw 1 other group in a vehicle driving around, and saw another (W. VA) parked in a cutting. The weather did not help us at all either. From the moment we left W. MI (4AM), it poured rain all the way there and stopped at around (2PM). Friday was an absolute gully-washer. My train of thought was, once your wet, your wet, so you might as well keep hunting. Saturday brought clear skys, but windy and warm temperatures. Hunting conditions were not ideal, but worth every minute of the time spent up in the UP. You can not beat it with a buggy whip if you ask me. I was supposed to hop on a plane to Minneapolis and then to Bismarck last night to meet up with my family for a week of bird hunting there. However, Northworst decided to screw things up and delay the flight out of Grand Rapids by 4 hours. So I loose a day of hunting there, but gain a day of vacation, because I am working today. What do you do!! I wish that the 2007 Grouse camp was not over yet, but 2008 is just around the corner and I am to go now. As a side bar, we found a delicious new way to make Woodcock taste AMAZING. We came up with a recipe called Cock-Teezers. We could not get enough of the taste, it blew me away!!:lol:

We were hunting in the Dickenson/Menominee/Marquette county areas.

[gbear]

Glad you guys had a good time. That is exactly what I encountered when I was up there a week ago. Still nice to hunt up there.

How about the recipe for the woodcock. Always looking for some new recipes for the timberdoodles.

[MallardMaster]

I am sure that you all have your own little twist on this, and probably already use this in some form or fashion.

You are supposed to butter-fly the beast, but we found out it was easier to use 2 breasts. We stuffed 3-4 banana peppers between the breasts (I would like to use jalapeno's), and then tightly wrapped 3 strips of bacon around the woodcock, then pinned it with a toothpick. Then we set them on the grill for 15-20 minutes on low heat. We found that the bacon kept the juice inside the cock teezers. I do not know if it was because we were at bird camp, the fact we called them cock-teezers, or that they were just that good. It just blew us all away.

Let me know what you thought of them, and any variations you might use.

[BeWild]

I also just got back from grouse camp this past weekend in the UP (even though I live here) and we set a record for the camp. It being my first time there I didn't know what to expect, but the hunting was excellent. For 6 guys without a single dog, we managed 8 grouse, 13 woodcock, and 2 snowshoes for the whole day Saturday and half a day on Sunday. Those were all the birds we managed to hit, but saw quite a few more. IMO, there wasnt a lack of either species of bird, it just takes some scouting and alot of walking to find out where they want to be. Good luck.

[TrophyLine]

Thanks for the recipe. I have tried many combos to make that even moderately tasty including a few warm up beverages, but nothing works. Will try this one for sure as it is the second time I have heard something similar. Bird numbers for us have been up in the UP as well as the LP this year. Had a great weekend two weeks ago in the Hiawatha and the next day in the west UP with good numbers in the LP all season.