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Several of us went to the northern plains, Charlie Herzog, Dick Dow, Russ Lindsay, Pete Kappes, Jason ( Pete's hired hand and a taxidermist) and me. Ten days there chasing sharptail grouse, Hungarian partridge and sage grouse. We did well, good dog work and had a memorable time.
We saw hundreds of pheasant, there were three hatches this year, and the season should go well, opening Oct 11.
Sage grouse are trophy birds, difficult to hunt and hard to find, but everyone was successful and Jason will mount them. Everybody shot Parkers except Jason who does not yet own one. Guns ranged from C through V , 12 , 16 and 20ga. Hammer and hammerless.
Sharptails and sage grouse can be hard to hunt. Particularly when in groups, they often post sentries on a high point and will post outriders around the main group. Shots can be 20 yards or 50 yards. Sage grouse take off fast like any grouse and reach full speed quickly, and they take off downwind. Combined with a typical 20mph breeze, a lot of lead is required on a crossing bird. Being big bird, they can absorb a hit and keep airborne. One of our guys folded a big male which we thought was dead in the air, yet it hit the ground, bounced up and flew away, not to be found again.
We walked anywhere from 4 miles to 9 miles each day. My great grandfather homesteaded a couple hundred miles east. The weather was pleasant, much more so than in January.
The Following 24 Users Say Thank You to Bruce Day For Your Post:
No checkering gun. 0 frame 16ga 30" I kept trying to push the safety off.
John Dunkle says he is going to get away from website management and move to that house.
The bar is the famous Jersey Lilly in Ingomar, Montana at the far end of the Musselshell valley. Hitching posts, dirt streets, corral at one side and cattle loading chutes across the street. Two sage grouse were picking at grain spilled in the corral.
Long trip to northern Minnesota in October. They have trees to spoil the view there.
Very nice Bruce,thanks for sharing....when we hunt our open ground for Ptarmigan and spy a sunny ridge with similar cover (like a couple of your pics show ) we usually make for it as it most likely will hold sunning birds ,do you do the same?...and would the mixed tree cover shown on one of your pics of the same ridge hold say a ruffed grouse or something similar I ask because I shot a ruffed grouse in a tuck of woods on the barrens this weekend...he was a long ways from I usually find them ,then again with the wind up here these past couple days its a wonder I haven't blown out of my own place !
09-24-2014, 10:13 AM
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