We had been planning this trip for over a year. In 2013 and 2014 there were rumblings about 2015 possibly being the last year to be able to hunt sage grouse and Steve and I decided that we needed to get into the sage grouse with Drake before they closed the season. We’d been doing some reading off and on about sage grouse and where in Montana they could be found but come August, we really got into the researching. Well, actually, I did. Steve said, “This part of the trip is all you. You do the research and find out where we gotta go to hunt sage grouse. The success of the sage grouse hunt is all on how good the information is that you gather.”
That was incredibly daunting. Heck, I’ve never even seen a sage grouse except in pictures and videos. I knew absolutely nothing about them except that they live out west and live in sage brush areas. So I began talking with Debbie Hohler, a very helpful lady, with the Montana Upland Game Bird Program about sage grouse, reading studies that have been done regarding sage grouse, lek locations and their populations in Montana, talking some more with Debbie and pouring over various population density maps (one was a very area specific map that narrowed the starting point search to several counties that had been very graciously supplied by Greg Kurz, a really good friend of Steve’s, with the USFWS), Delormes maps, block management properties and upland game bird enhancement properties just so that I could come to a conclusion on where we should start.
Drake and I flew out to Spokane on Sept 22 to be picked up by Steve so that we could start our grand adventure of Montana. Sept 23 dawned a great day: my birthday, the first day of fall and the first day I had ever been to Montana. The mountains we drove through were incredible.
The weather was gorgeous. We stopped that afternoon at a campground for a night in St. Regis as that whole area looked very ruffled grousey. I had decided that I wanted to keep to my birthday tradition and try to kill a bird for my birthday. In Florida, teal and woodduck season usually falls so that my birthday is somewhere in that time frame and I generally celebrate with a fat wood duck, though sometimes a teal or two or three. So we drove some forest roads looking for grousy areas to start walking. And we found lots of pretty areas. In my mind there should’ve been grouse EVERYWHERE it was so pretty, but alas we only found a few places that had them. We did make the most of those areas though.
On one road, we drove over a dirt covered trestle bridge that had potholes in it. Except that you could see through the potholes to the ground about 200 feet below!!! It’s a wee bit unnerving to be crossing a dirt road with holes in it that have no bottom in a one ton pickup truck. But we survived the crossing and re-crossing. The evening was coming to a close when we decided to push one more little stretch of cover that we’d seen near a creek. Not too long after beginning our push, Drake began getting really excited and a grouse flushed out from under his nose! I was able to get the bird to accept my invite to dinner and Drake brought him to me. By the tail. Well what was left of his tail. There were only a couple tail feathers left and it turned out my ruffled grouse was a pretty copper phase grouse. ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH my first copper bird and between my shooting and Drake’s retrieving, there was no salvaging the tail. OOOOHHHHHHHH well. I still had my birthday birds so I was a happy girl. And what delicious birds they were.
The next morning we tried to find another ruffled grouse, but we didn’t want to hunt long as we still had a loooooooong drive ahead of us. We hunted for two hours, found a bunch of turkeys that we watched for a while and decided it’s time to go pack up the camper and head out.
Afterwards, we drove for what seemed like FOREVER. Montana is a HUGE FREAKING STATE. We crossed the continental divide and more gorgeous mountains. I saw my first antelope.
Saw some interesting sights as we drove through some of the towns.
We also saw pretty flowers, which was cool to me to see in late September.
We got as far as the Lewis and Clark National Forest and decided to call it a day and set up camp at the campground. It was a gorgeous campground. Absolutely gorgeous. So pretty that there should have been a couple of grouse cruising through, but we never saw any. There was a notice on the sign in box that black bears had been seen in the area, so beware. That night I woke up and heard something snuffling around outside our camper. I lay there listening to the snuffling, my imagination running wild and I decided that I was very happy that I was in the camper as I didn’t fancy myself a bear burrito. We loaded up in the morning shortly after day break and off we went to FINALLY reach the place that I had decided we were to start at. Have I mentioned that Montana is a HUGE freaking state? HUGE!
When we arrived at our location, there was no small amount of, “Why did you bring us HERE?!?!?” It looked nothing like any place Steve had ever hunted sage grouse. In fact there was only a little sage interspersed in the grassy fields that broke up the farmed fields. It was very sharptail and hun looking, but not so much on sage grouse. The only answer I had was that this area is the best based on all my research. It was late afternoon and we found the campground and went out driving around to get a feel for the terrain and see if maybe we could at least see a sage grouse. I saw my first prairie dog town. It at least was in the middle of sage brush fields, so we were feeling a little better about my choice of starting locations. We found an area that had a bit of water and decided that was where we would start in the morning.
Morning dawned and with no small amount of trepidation on my part, as I worried majorly if I’d blown the whole point of the trip, we headed out to where we decided we’d start. We walked at least a couple miles. Not one single poop. Not one single old track. Didn’t even find a feather.
I’m sure it’s easy to imagine what I was thinking. None of it was good and I majorly doubted all of the research I had done. After the unproductive walk, we were at the truck in another spot slowly getting ready to try another place when this pickup truck with two ranchers in it drives up and asks if we’d seen a big one. Steve responded that we were bird hunting and looking for sage grouse but we’d seen a nice antelope back that way (and he was a niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice antelope) if they were antelope hunters. While I was picking cactus spines out of Drakes' feet, they told us that they were ranchers and Steve and them got to talking about sage grouse in the area and how we were trying to get me my first sage grouse. Imagine my relief at hearing them respond to Steve that OHHHHHH YEAH this is THE place to go for sage grouse, that they’re all over the place here. They were very nice guys and told us that they’d seen a flock of sage grouse about 200 yards off the road back the way we’d come and if we’d like to follow them, they’d point out where they saw them and we could hunt the property. So, they took us back to where they’d seen the birds. And sure enough, they were out there, but they flushed while I watched them through the binoculars and was getting my first real look at a live sage grouse. They flew about a mile or so further away from the road (have I mentioned that Montana is a HUGE FREAKING STATE?). The ranchers said good luck with those far flying birds as we set out to see if we could find the birds again. They were really nice guys.
We walked the creek bed where we’d seen them milling to see if there was a late bird, and then struck out for where we thought they landed. I walked up to the top of the hills and back down the other side, found another tank, then Drake and I worked our way back down the hills again. Well it was Steve who found the birds again and he managed to pull a beautiful boomer out of the flock as the rest flew to the horizon and beyond. Lordy those birds can fly and jeeeeeeeeeeez are they BIG! Drake and I were about 100 yards away.
On the way back in though, we started paying attention to what we were seeing and walking through. Lots of poop and feathers and tracks in short green grass surrounded by sage brush.
And his crop was full of hoppers and green grass and volunteer alfalfa. So now we knew what kind of habitat to look for, we had verification from the two ranchers we were in the right area, we had a boomer in the bag, and a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I had gotten us to the right place.
It was hot that day, so we drove around getting a feel for more of the area during the afternoon and where we could hunt. Just before lunch we’d done some glassing from the top of a hill and found a creek in a draw that actually had water in it. Because it was so warm out, and we weren’t using the AC so even in the back seat with the windows down Drake was getting warm we stopped to walk on down to the creek to let him cool off in the creek. While Drake was messing around in the water, he got excited about something, and as I had learned on a previous trip, don’t leave the truck without the gun or you’re sure to find birds, I got up and started following him. He was very birdy and shortly afterwards he put up a real nice covey of huns. They must appreciate the water too because every day that we stopped to walk the creek after that, we were successful at finding them within a half mile of either side of the creek.
Later that afternoon we found an area that looked a lot like where we learned about the first sage grouse so we decided we’d go for a “quick walk”. We weren’t planning on going far we said. We’d just follow this draw down to the end and come back up. So, with no pack, no water, a pocketful of shells each, my dog and our guns, off we went down that pretty little green draw that was surrounded by sage covered hills. That draw went much further down than we thought but we flushed a couple of sharptails out of there (too far to shoot at) so we were hopeful. A ways down, where another green draw met up with the one we had just finished walking out of, I found a HUGE deer skull. Of course I did. I had no pack to carry it out in. Figgers.
It was still hot even though it was late afternoon and we decided that since we’d walked the bottom of that draw, we’d walk the top of the hills that were in between both draws on our way back to the truck. It was the right choice. We were walking along and Drake was getting excited about something when a big bird flushed way out! Well with my fumbling with dropping my skull that was in one hand and fumbling with the safety (oh, I forgot to mention that I had put the safety in backwards the last time I took the trigger assembly apart to clean it thoroughly. DOOOOOOOOOH…I did later fix that oops though), the bird was out of range before I shot. Which turned out to be a good thing because very shortly afterwards, more sage grouse got up and I very quickly had my first AND second sage grouses!! And Steve finished his limit for the day too!
OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH lordy the crowing that was going on on top of that hill! The happy dances that were being danced!!! The high fives that were being shared!!! My first sage grouse and I doubled! Our first day hunting them and we each limited!!! How different our attitudes were from just that morning. The trip had just then become a success!!!! And all of the birds that we got that day were big males (not that that would have mattered to me at that point but it was even more exciting). Don’t know how we managed that but we did. We sat for a while basking in our success, sitting in the sage, admiring our prizes, enjoying the breeze and letting Drake cool down a bit.
Soon it was time to trek back to the truck. First though came the question of hmmmmmmmmmmmm now how the heck do I haul my gun, my two sage grouse and skull out? Eventually I got the most comfortable way to carry it all out figured out (I was almost to the truck though as I went through different positions). I decided to see if perhaps the sharptails were on the same side of the hill as the sage grouse were and so Steve followed the ridge back to the truck while I went further down into the next draw. Drake got really excited again and just past the road he flushed another flock of sage grouse. This one a bigger flock. Like 20-30 birds. Hmmmmmmmm something to keep in mind for the next day.
I had some more walking to do still to get to the truck and my skull and sage grouse were getting heavy. Drake needed water too so we didn’t do much other than watch them and decide that the sharptails were long gone and it was time to truly head back to the truck. Steve and I sat on the tailgate, admiring our prizes, grinning from ear to ear, Drake was cooling down, and we were enjoying an ice cold beer while watching the sun go down on our first day of sage grousing. What a day it had been. My spirits were high, I was pleased that I’d gotten us to where we needed to be and we had four more days of sage grousing to look forward to before the season ended. We were successful and the season and trip wasn’t even over.
The afternoons and evenings found me spending about an hour picking cactus spines from Drake’s feet. You’d think he was being tortured. His feet rarely seemed to bother him but me taking the time to remove the spines from his feet? He’s a sweet boy but lordy can he be a drama queen when it comes to caring for his feet. I gotta say though that if I had to hunt barefooted, you’d never see me hunting. So if he wants to be a drama queen, I’m happy for him to be a drama queen.
Throughout the next four days, we figured out that there were several nice coveys in the general area and we were able to work out a route through the sage that took us from tank to tank, that would allow us to hunt until 10 or 11 and keep Drake cool if we hunted the area in the mornings. And we were pretty successful on our walks.
We also explored other properties. One morning we got onto several nice coveys of sharptails and huns in addition to our sage grouse.
Sage grouse have such neat tails. It'll be a lovely mount.
One afternoon we headed out to Slippery Ann to see the elk at CM Russell NWR. I’ve seen elk before but I’d never heard them bugle and I was told I will FOR SURE get to hear them bugle at Slippery Ann. We spent probably four hours watching the bulls bugling, corralling their harems, watching the big ones posture with each other, fight some with each other, all the while the young’uns slipped into the big boys’ harems for a quick bit of love with the big boys’ girls then slipped away before the big boys saw and took offense. It was amazing seeing and hearing all of those big bulls.
Wow what a trip it was turning out to be and I still had plenty of trip left to go! I’d crossed the Continental Divide in Montana. I’d seen my first antelope, my first prairie dogs and prairie dog town, my first badger (though that only counts has a half a first I think cuz it was bloated on the side of the road), shot my first sharptail and sage grouse, and heard elk bugle for the first time. I hunted birds in the middle of nowhere (or if it’s not the middle of nowhere, it’ll sure do til we find it). You could look in all directions and not see even a sign of human presence except for Steve.
Some cows and I had a standoff when they decided that they thought that I was stealing a calf and kept coming after me (Drake is certainly little calf sized and cows aren’t the brightest bunch in the world and he learned about cows in WA by aggravating a bull so he kept real close to me with those cows around). I saw sharptails sitting on a power line like they were a flock of starlings. Goofy birds. I’d found some really neat sheds (one of the sheds I’m pretty sure is a shed from the buck whose skull I found that first day). I’d seen some gorgeous country that I’d never seen before. I had my mind blown by just how vast Montana is.
And have I mentioned that Montana is a HUGE FREAKING STATE? I mean we would stop on the road, not even pull over, and watch antelope for ten minutes and not have anyone pass us in either direction. We napped one day on the side of a dirt road for two hours and not one single person drove by (or if they did they drove by very quietly and didn’t want to stop to see what was up with the two people and dog lying by their truck on the side of the road). Everything is a long way from everywhere.
But, for as vast as Montana is, we were in the grocery store getting some things when Michael (Uplandish) walks up behind Steve and says, “Dang Steve, I thought I heard your voice!” It’s a small world, even in some place as huge as Montana.
Michael was out chasing Sage Grouse as well and wasn’t having any luck. The next day was the last day of the season and we invited him to hunt with us in the morning. It was another hot one and the tanks along the route we were taking were about a mile apart. Even so, with his big running setter (and lordy could he run and what a beauty he was to watch run) it got too hot too quickly for him. Steve and I continued along our track while Michael had to cool his boy off and take him back to the truck. We found a handful of sage grouse after stopping at the various tanks along our route to rest Drake for a good while and let him get wet. Naturally they were about ¼ mile from the truck.
After we finally met back up at the truck with Michael, we had a very nice afternoon sitting on the side of the road, in the shade of the truck, munching on apples, enjoying a cold beer, waiting for the sun to get lower and for it to get cooler. While the three of us were sitting there, a truck from North Dakota stops by to join the party. Steve jokingly says you can’t join us unless you have a beer. The guy laughed and said no problem and grabbed a beer for all of us. I grabbed one of our beers for him and the four of us sat in the shade of the truck. I never caught his name, but he was out elk hunting and figured that since this was the last day for sage grouse he’d see if he could find one as he’d never shot one. We told him he came to the right place and we all just chilled til it got cool enough for Michael and the gentleman from North Dakota to head back out to try to find the sage grouse. It was a great afternoon sitting on the side of the road. Other than the very first day we were sage grousing, we hadn’t seen another bird hunter, heck we hardly ever saw another human being. Sitting on the side of the road, we saw one road hunter who was out to try to find the last sage grouse of the season, some sharptail hunters from Texas who sneered at us and practically peeled rubber to get away from the four of us when they found out we were sage grouse hunting and the gentleman from North Dakota. I guess the last day is almost as popular as the first day. One last hurrah. When it came time for us to consider heading back out, Steve and I figured that Michael and the gentleman from North Dakota could have the best area we had found for the afternoon and we’d see if we could get lucky and get our last sage grouse for the day while chasing some sharptails and huns. I do believe that Michael got lucky with one that afternoon which sure tickled me to hear. I’m unsure about the gentleman from North Dakota but I hope he did.
The end of the sage grouse season came too quickly, but it was a sweet one. We hunted 5 days and Steve and I each shot 9 sage grouse. We ate a lot of sage grouse in camp over those five days so that we could stay legal. And lordy was it delicious. Better than any steak I’ve ever had. It was cut into chunks big enough to fit on the grill and not fall through the racks, soaked briefly in melted butter, Worcestershire sauce, garlic and pepper then cooked on the grill rare. A more tender piece of meat I’ve never had.
I do believe that I have found the king of upland bird hunting: the sage grouse. He’s not an easy bird to hunt. Definitely he’s not for the faint of heart. He isn’t found in just anyone’s backyard or sitting on some tree limb. He’s native. He’s delicious. And besides, he’s got a GREAT pair of moobs.
That was incredibly daunting. Heck, I’ve never even seen a sage grouse except in pictures and videos. I knew absolutely nothing about them except that they live out west and live in sage brush areas. So I began talking with Debbie Hohler, a very helpful lady, with the Montana Upland Game Bird Program about sage grouse, reading studies that have been done regarding sage grouse, lek locations and their populations in Montana, talking some more with Debbie and pouring over various population density maps (one was a very area specific map that narrowed the starting point search to several counties that had been very graciously supplied by Greg Kurz, a really good friend of Steve’s, with the USFWS), Delormes maps, block management properties and upland game bird enhancement properties just so that I could come to a conclusion on where we should start.
Drake and I flew out to Spokane on Sept 22 to be picked up by Steve so that we could start our grand adventure of Montana. Sept 23 dawned a great day: my birthday, the first day of fall and the first day I had ever been to Montana. The mountains we drove through were incredible.
The weather was gorgeous. We stopped that afternoon at a campground for a night in St. Regis as that whole area looked very ruffled grousey. I had decided that I wanted to keep to my birthday tradition and try to kill a bird for my birthday. In Florida, teal and woodduck season usually falls so that my birthday is somewhere in that time frame and I generally celebrate with a fat wood duck, though sometimes a teal or two or three. So we drove some forest roads looking for grousy areas to start walking. And we found lots of pretty areas. In my mind there should’ve been grouse EVERYWHERE it was so pretty, but alas we only found a few places that had them. We did make the most of those areas though.
On one road, we drove over a dirt covered trestle bridge that had potholes in it. Except that you could see through the potholes to the ground about 200 feet below!!! It’s a wee bit unnerving to be crossing a dirt road with holes in it that have no bottom in a one ton pickup truck. But we survived the crossing and re-crossing. The evening was coming to a close when we decided to push one more little stretch of cover that we’d seen near a creek. Not too long after beginning our push, Drake began getting really excited and a grouse flushed out from under his nose! I was able to get the bird to accept my invite to dinner and Drake brought him to me. By the tail. Well what was left of his tail. There were only a couple tail feathers left and it turned out my ruffled grouse was a pretty copper phase grouse. ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH my first copper bird and between my shooting and Drake’s retrieving, there was no salvaging the tail. OOOOHHHHHHHH well. I still had my birthday birds so I was a happy girl. And what delicious birds they were.
The next morning we tried to find another ruffled grouse, but we didn’t want to hunt long as we still had a loooooooong drive ahead of us. We hunted for two hours, found a bunch of turkeys that we watched for a while and decided it’s time to go pack up the camper and head out.
Afterwards, we drove for what seemed like FOREVER. Montana is a HUGE FREAKING STATE. We crossed the continental divide and more gorgeous mountains. I saw my first antelope.
Saw some interesting sights as we drove through some of the towns.
We also saw pretty flowers, which was cool to me to see in late September.
We got as far as the Lewis and Clark National Forest and decided to call it a day and set up camp at the campground. It was a gorgeous campground. Absolutely gorgeous. So pretty that there should have been a couple of grouse cruising through, but we never saw any. There was a notice on the sign in box that black bears had been seen in the area, so beware. That night I woke up and heard something snuffling around outside our camper. I lay there listening to the snuffling, my imagination running wild and I decided that I was very happy that I was in the camper as I didn’t fancy myself a bear burrito. We loaded up in the morning shortly after day break and off we went to FINALLY reach the place that I had decided we were to start at. Have I mentioned that Montana is a HUGE freaking state? HUGE!
When we arrived at our location, there was no small amount of, “Why did you bring us HERE?!?!?” It looked nothing like any place Steve had ever hunted sage grouse. In fact there was only a little sage interspersed in the grassy fields that broke up the farmed fields. It was very sharptail and hun looking, but not so much on sage grouse. The only answer I had was that this area is the best based on all my research. It was late afternoon and we found the campground and went out driving around to get a feel for the terrain and see if maybe we could at least see a sage grouse. I saw my first prairie dog town. It at least was in the middle of sage brush fields, so we were feeling a little better about my choice of starting locations. We found an area that had a bit of water and decided that was where we would start in the morning.
Morning dawned and with no small amount of trepidation on my part, as I worried majorly if I’d blown the whole point of the trip, we headed out to where we decided we’d start. We walked at least a couple miles. Not one single poop. Not one single old track. Didn’t even find a feather.
I’m sure it’s easy to imagine what I was thinking. None of it was good and I majorly doubted all of the research I had done. After the unproductive walk, we were at the truck in another spot slowly getting ready to try another place when this pickup truck with two ranchers in it drives up and asks if we’d seen a big one. Steve responded that we were bird hunting and looking for sage grouse but we’d seen a nice antelope back that way (and he was a niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice antelope) if they were antelope hunters. While I was picking cactus spines out of Drakes' feet, they told us that they were ranchers and Steve and them got to talking about sage grouse in the area and how we were trying to get me my first sage grouse. Imagine my relief at hearing them respond to Steve that OHHHHHH YEAH this is THE place to go for sage grouse, that they’re all over the place here. They were very nice guys and told us that they’d seen a flock of sage grouse about 200 yards off the road back the way we’d come and if we’d like to follow them, they’d point out where they saw them and we could hunt the property. So, they took us back to where they’d seen the birds. And sure enough, they were out there, but they flushed while I watched them through the binoculars and was getting my first real look at a live sage grouse. They flew about a mile or so further away from the road (have I mentioned that Montana is a HUGE FREAKING STATE?). The ranchers said good luck with those far flying birds as we set out to see if we could find the birds again. They were really nice guys.
We walked the creek bed where we’d seen them milling to see if there was a late bird, and then struck out for where we thought they landed. I walked up to the top of the hills and back down the other side, found another tank, then Drake and I worked our way back down the hills again. Well it was Steve who found the birds again and he managed to pull a beautiful boomer out of the flock as the rest flew to the horizon and beyond. Lordy those birds can fly and jeeeeeeeeeeez are they BIG! Drake and I were about 100 yards away.
On the way back in though, we started paying attention to what we were seeing and walking through. Lots of poop and feathers and tracks in short green grass surrounded by sage brush.
And his crop was full of hoppers and green grass and volunteer alfalfa. So now we knew what kind of habitat to look for, we had verification from the two ranchers we were in the right area, we had a boomer in the bag, and a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I had gotten us to the right place.
It was hot that day, so we drove around getting a feel for more of the area during the afternoon and where we could hunt. Just before lunch we’d done some glassing from the top of a hill and found a creek in a draw that actually had water in it. Because it was so warm out, and we weren’t using the AC so even in the back seat with the windows down Drake was getting warm we stopped to walk on down to the creek to let him cool off in the creek. While Drake was messing around in the water, he got excited about something, and as I had learned on a previous trip, don’t leave the truck without the gun or you’re sure to find birds, I got up and started following him. He was very birdy and shortly afterwards he put up a real nice covey of huns. They must appreciate the water too because every day that we stopped to walk the creek after that, we were successful at finding them within a half mile of either side of the creek.
Later that afternoon we found an area that looked a lot like where we learned about the first sage grouse so we decided we’d go for a “quick walk”. We weren’t planning on going far we said. We’d just follow this draw down to the end and come back up. So, with no pack, no water, a pocketful of shells each, my dog and our guns, off we went down that pretty little green draw that was surrounded by sage covered hills. That draw went much further down than we thought but we flushed a couple of sharptails out of there (too far to shoot at) so we were hopeful. A ways down, where another green draw met up with the one we had just finished walking out of, I found a HUGE deer skull. Of course I did. I had no pack to carry it out in. Figgers.
It was still hot even though it was late afternoon and we decided that since we’d walked the bottom of that draw, we’d walk the top of the hills that were in between both draws on our way back to the truck. It was the right choice. We were walking along and Drake was getting excited about something when a big bird flushed way out! Well with my fumbling with dropping my skull that was in one hand and fumbling with the safety (oh, I forgot to mention that I had put the safety in backwards the last time I took the trigger assembly apart to clean it thoroughly. DOOOOOOOOOH…I did later fix that oops though), the bird was out of range before I shot. Which turned out to be a good thing because very shortly afterwards, more sage grouse got up and I very quickly had my first AND second sage grouses!! And Steve finished his limit for the day too!
OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH lordy the crowing that was going on on top of that hill! The happy dances that were being danced!!! The high fives that were being shared!!! My first sage grouse and I doubled! Our first day hunting them and we each limited!!! How different our attitudes were from just that morning. The trip had just then become a success!!!! And all of the birds that we got that day were big males (not that that would have mattered to me at that point but it was even more exciting). Don’t know how we managed that but we did. We sat for a while basking in our success, sitting in the sage, admiring our prizes, enjoying the breeze and letting Drake cool down a bit.
Soon it was time to trek back to the truck. First though came the question of hmmmmmmmmmmmm now how the heck do I haul my gun, my two sage grouse and skull out? Eventually I got the most comfortable way to carry it all out figured out (I was almost to the truck though as I went through different positions). I decided to see if perhaps the sharptails were on the same side of the hill as the sage grouse were and so Steve followed the ridge back to the truck while I went further down into the next draw. Drake got really excited again and just past the road he flushed another flock of sage grouse. This one a bigger flock. Like 20-30 birds. Hmmmmmmmm something to keep in mind for the next day.
I had some more walking to do still to get to the truck and my skull and sage grouse were getting heavy. Drake needed water too so we didn’t do much other than watch them and decide that the sharptails were long gone and it was time to truly head back to the truck. Steve and I sat on the tailgate, admiring our prizes, grinning from ear to ear, Drake was cooling down, and we were enjoying an ice cold beer while watching the sun go down on our first day of sage grousing. What a day it had been. My spirits were high, I was pleased that I’d gotten us to where we needed to be and we had four more days of sage grousing to look forward to before the season ended. We were successful and the season and trip wasn’t even over.
The afternoons and evenings found me spending about an hour picking cactus spines from Drake’s feet. You’d think he was being tortured. His feet rarely seemed to bother him but me taking the time to remove the spines from his feet? He’s a sweet boy but lordy can he be a drama queen when it comes to caring for his feet. I gotta say though that if I had to hunt barefooted, you’d never see me hunting. So if he wants to be a drama queen, I’m happy for him to be a drama queen.
Throughout the next four days, we figured out that there were several nice coveys in the general area and we were able to work out a route through the sage that took us from tank to tank, that would allow us to hunt until 10 or 11 and keep Drake cool if we hunted the area in the mornings. And we were pretty successful on our walks.
We also explored other properties. One morning we got onto several nice coveys of sharptails and huns in addition to our sage grouse.
Sage grouse have such neat tails. It'll be a lovely mount.
One afternoon we headed out to Slippery Ann to see the elk at CM Russell NWR. I’ve seen elk before but I’d never heard them bugle and I was told I will FOR SURE get to hear them bugle at Slippery Ann. We spent probably four hours watching the bulls bugling, corralling their harems, watching the big ones posture with each other, fight some with each other, all the while the young’uns slipped into the big boys’ harems for a quick bit of love with the big boys’ girls then slipped away before the big boys saw and took offense. It was amazing seeing and hearing all of those big bulls.
Wow what a trip it was turning out to be and I still had plenty of trip left to go! I’d crossed the Continental Divide in Montana. I’d seen my first antelope, my first prairie dogs and prairie dog town, my first badger (though that only counts has a half a first I think cuz it was bloated on the side of the road), shot my first sharptail and sage grouse, and heard elk bugle for the first time. I hunted birds in the middle of nowhere (or if it’s not the middle of nowhere, it’ll sure do til we find it). You could look in all directions and not see even a sign of human presence except for Steve.
Some cows and I had a standoff when they decided that they thought that I was stealing a calf and kept coming after me (Drake is certainly little calf sized and cows aren’t the brightest bunch in the world and he learned about cows in WA by aggravating a bull so he kept real close to me with those cows around). I saw sharptails sitting on a power line like they were a flock of starlings. Goofy birds. I’d found some really neat sheds (one of the sheds I’m pretty sure is a shed from the buck whose skull I found that first day). I’d seen some gorgeous country that I’d never seen before. I had my mind blown by just how vast Montana is.
And have I mentioned that Montana is a HUGE FREAKING STATE? I mean we would stop on the road, not even pull over, and watch antelope for ten minutes and not have anyone pass us in either direction. We napped one day on the side of a dirt road for two hours and not one single person drove by (or if they did they drove by very quietly and didn’t want to stop to see what was up with the two people and dog lying by their truck on the side of the road). Everything is a long way from everywhere.
But, for as vast as Montana is, we were in the grocery store getting some things when Michael (Uplandish) walks up behind Steve and says, “Dang Steve, I thought I heard your voice!” It’s a small world, even in some place as huge as Montana.
Michael was out chasing Sage Grouse as well and wasn’t having any luck. The next day was the last day of the season and we invited him to hunt with us in the morning. It was another hot one and the tanks along the route we were taking were about a mile apart. Even so, with his big running setter (and lordy could he run and what a beauty he was to watch run) it got too hot too quickly for him. Steve and I continued along our track while Michael had to cool his boy off and take him back to the truck. We found a handful of sage grouse after stopping at the various tanks along our route to rest Drake for a good while and let him get wet. Naturally they were about ¼ mile from the truck.
After we finally met back up at the truck with Michael, we had a very nice afternoon sitting on the side of the road, in the shade of the truck, munching on apples, enjoying a cold beer, waiting for the sun to get lower and for it to get cooler. While the three of us were sitting there, a truck from North Dakota stops by to join the party. Steve jokingly says you can’t join us unless you have a beer. The guy laughed and said no problem and grabbed a beer for all of us. I grabbed one of our beers for him and the four of us sat in the shade of the truck. I never caught his name, but he was out elk hunting and figured that since this was the last day for sage grouse he’d see if he could find one as he’d never shot one. We told him he came to the right place and we all just chilled til it got cool enough for Michael and the gentleman from North Dakota to head back out to try to find the sage grouse. It was a great afternoon sitting on the side of the road. Other than the very first day we were sage grousing, we hadn’t seen another bird hunter, heck we hardly ever saw another human being. Sitting on the side of the road, we saw one road hunter who was out to try to find the last sage grouse of the season, some sharptail hunters from Texas who sneered at us and practically peeled rubber to get away from the four of us when they found out we were sage grouse hunting and the gentleman from North Dakota. I guess the last day is almost as popular as the first day. One last hurrah. When it came time for us to consider heading back out, Steve and I figured that Michael and the gentleman from North Dakota could have the best area we had found for the afternoon and we’d see if we could get lucky and get our last sage grouse for the day while chasing some sharptails and huns. I do believe that Michael got lucky with one that afternoon which sure tickled me to hear. I’m unsure about the gentleman from North Dakota but I hope he did.
The end of the sage grouse season came too quickly, but it was a sweet one. We hunted 5 days and Steve and I each shot 9 sage grouse. We ate a lot of sage grouse in camp over those five days so that we could stay legal. And lordy was it delicious. Better than any steak I’ve ever had. It was cut into chunks big enough to fit on the grill and not fall through the racks, soaked briefly in melted butter, Worcestershire sauce, garlic and pepper then cooked on the grill rare. A more tender piece of meat I’ve never had.
I do believe that I have found the king of upland bird hunting: the sage grouse. He’s not an easy bird to hunt. Definitely he’s not for the faint of heart. He isn’t found in just anyone’s backyard or sitting on some tree limb. He’s native. He’s delicious. And besides, he’s got a GREAT pair of moobs.
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