Boss O/U at Julia’s brings $92,000…
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Friday, September 04, 2009
Montana Opener
Depending how one measures the success of a hunt, my opener may have been a disappointment. However, if you simply appreciate the beauty of your surroundings and the opportunity to be out following pointing dogs and the chance to shoot a few birds, you'd be in your element.
I have to admit that I may not have been as excited for this years opener. The weather forecast called for warm and wet weather with very little wind and my anticipation may have been quelled by pursuing birds in the last month leading up to the season opener. Still, I could not sleep the night before, even with a little help.
The plan was to get rolling early, beat the heat and rain. I had a new place lined up that I new held birds, both Partridge and Sharptails. A beautiful piece of Public land, with great views, choked draws and a nice size bench on top. However, when I woke up and let the dogs out at 5:30, the rain had beat us all up. We loaded up any way and headed out. The beauty of Big Sky Country is you can identify breaks in the weather quite a bit away and as we drove to the piece I planned to hunt and the rain got heavier, I could see a break West and in between to small mountain ranges. I turned around and headed that way.
Sure enough the rain slacked off a bit and the Sun began to show itself, it was shaping up to be a wonderful morning.
I decided to only run Deacon and Teigen this morning. Tradition calls for Deacon and I to open the season together just as we have for the last 10 years he's been with me and would only be different by having Teigen tag along. In all honesty, Deacon and I tagged along with my young Setter. The first hour was not the most gratifying, unless you like taking your rain coat off and on every 15 mins and watching 20 or so Sharptails get bumped and busted over and over. There were a few points but the birds would randomly flush after the point or when i would get close to shooting range. Frustrating yes...but happy still to be out.
Once the rain began to move on, we started to get better dog work and Teigen had the first find. When I saw this point, I didn't think he was holding birds but you could literally draw a line from his nose to where the covey of Huns got up...I was able to take what proved to be the only two Partridge of the day from that rise.
The morning progressed, we had another covey find but they didn't hang around. Interestingly, along with the rise, two Sharptails got up. I may have been able to take one but let them fly. Probably from fear of missing. We got into a few more Sharptails and it wasn't until one held tight underneath a bunch of Hawthorn and a nice point from Teigen, that I was able to bag my first Sharptail of the year and the day.
About 8:45, the sun became more dominant in the East and cast a nice image West that really made me pause and appreciate the morning. I thought I may find more birds in that direction...a bit to much of a romantic I may be...
By 10:00 the sun was getting higher and warmer and even for this Louisiana boy, it was feeling a bit muggy. Some observations, the Sharptails seem to be really jumpy in the rainy weather and all the birds we found on top of the benches and at the tops of the draws and coulee's. The dogs were slowing down, we moved about 30 Sharptails and three covey's of Huns, with three birds in the bag, we called it a day.
It was a good day!
Day Two found us at the spot I'd hoped to hunt on the opener.
I have to admit that I may not have been as excited for this years opener. The weather forecast called for warm and wet weather with very little wind and my anticipation may have been quelled by pursuing birds in the last month leading up to the season opener. Still, I could not sleep the night before, even with a little help.
The plan was to get rolling early, beat the heat and rain. I had a new place lined up that I new held birds, both Partridge and Sharptails. A beautiful piece of Public land, with great views, choked draws and a nice size bench on top. However, when I woke up and let the dogs out at 5:30, the rain had beat us all up. We loaded up any way and headed out. The beauty of Big Sky Country is you can identify breaks in the weather quite a bit away and as we drove to the piece I planned to hunt and the rain got heavier, I could see a break West and in between to small mountain ranges. I turned around and headed that way.
Sure enough the rain slacked off a bit and the Sun began to show itself, it was shaping up to be a wonderful morning.
I decided to only run Deacon and Teigen this morning. Tradition calls for Deacon and I to open the season together just as we have for the last 10 years he's been with me and would only be different by having Teigen tag along. In all honesty, Deacon and I tagged along with my young Setter. The first hour was not the most gratifying, unless you like taking your rain coat off and on every 15 mins and watching 20 or so Sharptails get bumped and busted over and over. There were a few points but the birds would randomly flush after the point or when i would get close to shooting range. Frustrating yes...but happy still to be out.
Once the rain began to move on, we started to get better dog work and Teigen had the first find. When I saw this point, I didn't think he was holding birds but you could literally draw a line from his nose to where the covey of Huns got up...I was able to take what proved to be the only two Partridge of the day from that rise.
The morning progressed, we had another covey find but they didn't hang around. Interestingly, along with the rise, two Sharptails got up. I may have been able to take one but let them fly. Probably from fear of missing. We got into a few more Sharptails and it wasn't until one held tight underneath a bunch of Hawthorn and a nice point from Teigen, that I was able to bag my first Sharptail of the year and the day.
About 8:45, the sun became more dominant in the East and cast a nice image West that really made me pause and appreciate the morning. I thought I may find more birds in that direction...a bit to much of a romantic I may be...
By 10:00 the sun was getting higher and warmer and even for this Louisiana boy, it was feeling a bit muggy. Some observations, the Sharptails seem to be really jumpy in the rainy weather and all the birds we found on top of the benches and at the tops of the draws and coulee's. The dogs were slowing down, we moved about 30 Sharptails and three covey's of Huns, with three birds in the bag, we called it a day.
It was a good day!
Day Two found us at the spot I'd hoped to hunt on the opener.
Apparently the forecast for Montana doesn't look great for the Prairie birds...interestingly, Central Montana was left out of the list of regions. I can only speculate that our bird population locally is of no interest to anyone. I can live with that. It was warm this morning and we could only milk an hour and 1/2 of quality conditions for the dogs before it got to warm. I consider moving a covey ot two, per hour average/good activity for most places I hunt in Montana. This morning we moved four, healthy covey's...yesterday we moved three in three hours.
This pic is simply to show the maturity of the birds harvested...only one was a mature female, I still have a hard time telling the differance on the wing.
We stumbled across this Cairn while out, perhaps a grave for a sheep herder's dog or just a pile of rocks but a steller view is seen from this point.
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