Colorado Ptarmigan Hunting
 

Decided this morning to load up the dogs and go up in the high country to look for white-tailed ptarmigan found about the treeline in Colorado. Cinder found a porcupine at about 11,500 feet in the willows. We worked our way to about 12,021 feet before we started to see sign of ptarmigan. Got up into some high boulder fields when I realized the dogs were on point, but before I could get there the birds got nervous and flushed wild. It’s not easy moving at 12,300 ft...it’s like walking on the moon. Luckily, there we more birds when I got there and they kept coming out of some subalpine stunted fir trees.

Always enjoy your hunting posts! Which gun were you carrying?

Thanks Reggie. I was carrying my 1927 NID Ithaca. .410.

Good shooting, and nice wood on that one. How's the air up there?

Harold the air is really thin!

What an awesome trip. Seeing those beautiful shots and reading your commentary about hunting at 12,000 feet and chasing birds had me thinking. Seems you put in a lot of effort into it and not certain what elevation you live at but still that is a great challenge and rewarding adventure. Also saw you were hunting with a 410 with probably good reason to reduce carry weight. However in my mind if going to that much effort would want a little more shot in the pattern in a big open pattern to give me a higher advantage. You doing it with a 410 is pretty amazing if your gun is choked tight like most 410's I know about.

Most of the time my hunting does not have extreme elevation differences but doing a little research it could make difference in pattern and gun performance depending on elevation and temperature differentials and what choked gun should someone consider. It is all relative I guess but thought this piece very interesting. Their study was based on trap shooting 900 ft elevation to 5,000 elevation comparison with same shot and guns. Essentially a light choke say IC patterns very tightly at some good distances at higher elevation than it does at lower elevation. I'm sure you can make any case study prove your point but there is some reasonable validity to this one.

Essentially us flat landers can probably justify a gun with more choke than someone that hunts at a higher elevation. I mean if your shooting a 410 with tight chokes it might be like shooting them with a 22 rifle at 12K.

http://www.claytargettesting.com/Tem...e&Altitude.pdf

The high peaks of Colorado provide an incredibly backdrop for ptarmigan hunting. You are a fortunate man Shawn. I do two sometimes three trips a year to the high peaks for greenback cutthroat trout in RMNC. I have never seen a ptarmigan in all my trips. I'd love to see one. I go in solo for five days. Most of my fishing is at around 11,000 feet to 12,000 feet. The highest I have climbed is on Mt. Copeland at 13,100 feet. I’ve never done a 14’er.

Being a flatlander, altitude sickness is something I have to live with for a couple of days at altitude. It's not fun. On most trips it hits me at about 9,000 feet but I can usually make it to 10,000 feet before I start puking. I stop when I puke and do the rest of the hike the next day. Usually by the third day at altitude I am ok with little shortness of breath or headaches. I only do trail less areas and use a topo and a navigational compass to get around. My favorite greenback lake is Arrowhead. I don't need a compass to find it now, I could do the hike in my sleep.

I'd love to hunt ptarmigan Shawn. No hunting in RMNC. I'm thinking there are probably some in the Collegiate Range which I am also familiar with. One of my bucket items is to find and hunt ptarmigan. They are a fascinating bird in a virtual paradise. I love the Colorado high peaks. I’m planning to buy a place in Estes Park. Then I can split my time between Pawling, NY and Estes Park.

RMNC in an earlier post should be RMNP, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Shawn,

Looks like a great hunt. I just got back from ML elk season. We were camped at 10,000' and hiked up to treeline almost everyday. Didn't see any ptmarigan, but did run into some blues. As for elk, my tag was for hunting the wrong sex!

How do your dogs do at altitude?

All the best,
Ken

Ken...

My dogs didn't seem to even notice the altitude. Man do I love hunting those blues at 10K feet!