Brandon Butler shares his newly found affection for hunting woodcock in Northern Michigan.

Nick Green is the public information officer for Michigan United Conservation Clubs and editor of Michigan Out-of-Doors magazine. We met at an Association of Great Lake Outdoor Writers Association (AGLOW) conference in Bismarck, North Dakota in 2019. We reconnected recently in Gaylord, Michigan and I killed a limit of American woodcock behind his incredible bird dogs.

“Worm Burglars,” as woodcock are affectionately known, are a migratory gamebird that can make a trip from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. They are hunted throughout the central portion of the United States and make excellent table fare. The rich, dark game meat of a woodcock may remind you of liver. When roasted with the skin on, drizzled in wine with mushrooms and onions, you’ll understand what royalty experiences in the dining room.

My first hunt with Nick was in North Dakota. We killed sharp-tailed grouse on the National Grasslands south of Medora. My goal was to hunt where Theodore Roosevelt had hunted. I wanted to walk, shotgun in hand, over the same grassland my hero had hunted. We were successful in bagging five birds between us. For Nick, the real value of the hunt was in the work of his dogs Calvin and Summit.

Calvin and Summit serve an incredible purpose—they find and hold birds. I watched Calvin hold a woodcock to point not 6 inches under his nose. How that dog did not clamp down on that bird with his jaws is beyond me.

What I like most about grouse and woodcock hunting in the north country of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin is how you have to bust through cover. These birds live in new-growth forest. So, you basically dive into small trees and ferns thicker than anything a Midwesterner could imagine, and you plow forward.

I’ve not found a better place to pursue woodcock than Gaylord, Michigan. This is my second time to this alpine village in as many years. Just south of the Mackinac Bridge, Gaylord is an outdoor paradise—especially in fall. You just have to see it to believe it.

Want to try a different type of hunting or fishing? You’ll find lots of ideas in every issue of MidWest Outdoors, available by subscribing on our website.