Prairie Chickens - Needle in a Haystack?

[J. Scott Hanes]

Originally Posted by Dean Weber

Daryl,
As a way to identify, I am shooting a GH16, Scott Smith is shooting a black diamond Model 12, and my buddy John Lowry is shooting a Citori. We all chose our guns which provided enough choke for the longer shots.

As for taste....well they do not taste like chicken. However, we coated them with olive oil after tenderizing and seasoned with Tone's garlic and pepper blend. Cooked rare-ish, they tasted more like a red meat. To be honest, I was floored how delicious they were. All commented the same.

So their meat is dark? Like a duck? I have never seen nor hunted them. Sounds like a great time!

[Dean Weber]

Originally Posted by Daryl Corona

Mark,

Don't you just love it when you can stick it to 'em like that? Reminds me of one of my first trips to SD with an outfitter who just doesn't like someone to correct him.

He liked to supply ammo to the shooters for extra cost and he believed that they needed 12ga, 1 1/4, 6's. So when I uncased my 20ga Parker and stuffed it with 7/8oz of 7 1/2's he told me that if I wounded too many birds he would have to ask me to leave the field. Yeah, right. Fast forward to the next year and more of the guys were toting 20ga guns. He almost had a stroke when I showed up that year with a 28ga. Dumped him after that year and found a great family to hunt with and this will be our 15th or 16th year I believe. Still hunting with the 20's and 28's.

Our guys told us to bring autoloaders which would hold 4 or more shots. Magazine extenders would be very helpful! We told him we would mainly be using vintage guns, which he was not excited about. However, like your story, we killed the birds in front of us. Although the shots were long, chickens die pretty easily so low weight loads were not the problem....

[Dean Weber]

Originally Posted by J. Scott Hanes

So their meat is dark? Like a duck? I have never seen nor hunted them. Sounds like a great time!

Yes, the meat is dark. When you cook it rare to med-rare it leaves some blood for moisture and tastes like red meat.

[Double Lab]

Originally Posted by Dean Weber

Our guys told us to bring autoloaders which would hold 4 or more shots. Magazine extenders would be very helpful! We told him we would mainly be using vintage guns, which he was not excited about. However, like your story, we killed the birds in front of us. Although the shots were long, chickens die pretty easily so low weight loads were not the problem....

The problem with some outfitters is they don't understand our way of thinking when it comes to bird hunting shotguns. I've never felt undergunned when using a 2 barreled gun and couldn't imagine carrying a jam-o-matic with an extended magazine walking the prairie.

[Kevin McCormack]

Years ago a local here who used to be an FAA guru at the Pierre SD airport found out I had a business trip coming up, and put me in touch with some of his buddies there for a combined pheasant and sharptail hunt a couple of days before my meetings. I asked them what type of gun I should bring and they said "bring your favorite duck gun; we'll be hunting over dogs of 'dubious field performance' and you'll need lots of choke for the long shots. I did what they told me and packed my 12 ga. 30" barrel GHE choked F&F. We hunted south of Pierre, alternating prarie between the whistle stop towns of Murdo, Presho, Vivian and Draper.

The dogs consisted of my first-ever exposure to a pointing Lab, a brawler of a big raw-boned male Brittany spaniel, and a hound-type dog of indeterminant origin. The Lab actually pointed, the Brit actually found and retrieved birds, and the hound dog chased around and actually located some cripples we would have never found. Each of the 3 of us got a rooster pheasant, and the over-the-top highlight for me was scoring a left then right double out of three sharptails that came up abreast about 35 yards ahead of the dogs, who were working them. At the rise I killed the bird on the left, swung through the center bird, and killed the bird on the right almost in the same motion. Both fell out dead and I suspect the third one was in Canada before I reloaded.

[Harold Pickens]

Mark, wait, you're not from Manhattan?

[Phil C]

For me it’s all about the dog work so using a double is perfect for most of my wild quail hunting.
We generally hunt 6 or 7 hours each day.
With a Mearns quail the limit is 8 birds per day. ( I wish they would set the limit at 4 or 5). With an Automatic early in the season, your hunt could be over pretty quick and the dogs you have trained and feed for 10 months only get a couple of points.
This is especially true if you are hunting several of your dogs that day.
Not only that but a fair number of birds have been lost when multiple Mearns are shot.
It’s baffling at times how hard it can be for even seasoned dogs to locate a dead bird after they have been knocked down.
Even more so when they have a little life left in them.
Like a fine whiskey you need to savor it, not knock it out on a couple of swallows.

[mobirdhunter]

The “trophy” is the entire experience — the setting, the dog, the gun, and who you’re with, not killing the limit or piling birds on the tailgate.

The guide wants the advertising of big takes.

We are hunting more than birds.

[Drew Hause]

T.H. Elsner near Loup City, Neb., 1895 with a Parker

[Drew Hause]