North Dakota · UplandRuffed grouse

North Dakota's ruffed grouse population is up 21% statewide this year and sitting above its 20-year average. The spring survey found a regional split (Turtle Mountains up 40%, Pembina Hills down 15%), but the state's game department says a single region's decline shouldn't be read as a statewide signal here, since North Dakota's forest habitat is patchy and isolated rather than one contiguous range. A more recent, late-summer read backs that up: the state now describes both the Turtle Mountains and Pembina Hills as being about as high as they've been since 2010, and healthy in both areas heading into fall. Ruffed grouse hunting in North Dakota stays limited to those two areas (Turtle Mountains and the Pembina Gorge/Hills); a 2026 regulatory change lists the season as statewide, but that's a paperwork simplification, not a real range expansion. It's also a slow hunt by nature: expect to walk half a day to a full day per bird flushed, with no big flocks getting up the way sharp-tailed grouse hunting can produce. On the whole, a genuinely above-average year for both of the state's grouse areas.

Favorable weather, mild winters and warmer, drier June-July conditions, is the general driver the state names for year-to-year swings; no more specific 2026 cause was given.