Grouse drumming drops slightly following low production in ‘25

As hunters may have expected after low ruffed grouse brood production a year ago, the state’s 2026 Spring Drumming Survey in the northern region showed an 11% decline in grouse drumming compared to 2025.

The slight decline follows a cold, wet nesting season last June, when brood production dropped significantly over 2024 and left hunters with mediocre hunting opportunities last fall.

In what the DNR calls the Northern Priority Area, the 18-county northern region, drums heard per stop went from 2.13 in 2025 to 1.89 in 2026.

The survey showed that of the 52 northern routes run by wildlife managers, technicians and other cooperators, drumming decreased on 23 routes, increased on 16 and remained the same on 13.

However, it should be noted that the department’s long-range drums-perstop chart, which goes back to 1994, puts this year’s 1.89 drums per stop as still being higher than any year since 2012.

The chart also shows drumming soared in 2024, even higher than drumming was recorded during a peak year in 2011. It has tapered slowly since, but remains higher than the low years that followed the last population peak.

While it may be too early to determine the success of brood production in 2026, this June has been far hotter and drier than a year ago — suggesting brood production will at least be better than 2025.

What remains a mystery is the year of the last peak, which usually occurs every 9 to 11 years and usually occurs in a year that ends in 9, 0 or 1.

For the first time since the survey began in 1964, the DNR did not run the survey in 2020 as a global pandemic hit the state and nation.

“It is impossible to tell when the most recent high in the grouse cycle occurred,” the survey notes. “Whether 2019, 2020 or 2021 was the breeding grouse high is unable to be determined, but drumming numbers waned in the years immediately following 2020.”

The survey notes that the 2026 decline is higher than anticipated after an unexpected increase in drumming in 2024 and 2025. However, wildlife managers still say historic cyclic trends in the grouse population suggest that the next peak in the 10-year cycle will occur between 2029 and 2031.

Looking at this year’s survey from a statewide view, drumming dropped 11.6% — with decreases heard on 30 routes, increases on 18 routes and no change on 43 routes.

Drumming dropped 22% in central counties and 36% in the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin. The DNR’s survey again notes that there’s been an overriding downward trend in the grouse population since the inception of the drumming survey.

“Grouse highs are not as high as they have been in the past and the amplitude of the change from low to high, seems to be decreasing,” it said. “Changing land use patterns and the long-term aging of Wisconsin’s forests are likely contributing to these changes.”

Wildlife managers noted in the survey that a more traditional winter occurred across much of the grouse range in 2025-’26, especially in the Northwoods, where snowfall amounts were near average.

“Large temperature swings were the norm for winter 2025-’26, as the season started off with well-below normal temperatures but closed with one of the warmest Februarys on record across much of the state,” it states. They also said survey results might have been negatively influenced by the weather in April. “Though spring started out as expected with fluctuating temperatures and a mixture of precipitation types, record-setting rainfall during the month of April may have hindered initial ruffed grouse drumming and breeding activity and could have influenced survey results along heavily-impacted routes,” the survey noted.