September 1st Montana upland opening, who, what, where?

[D4570]

It kinda relates to the weather, I guess.
It looks like the fire restrictions are slowly being dropped.
We would love to take a road trip to someplace in the brakes, but like I said the weather thing. We could do Sharptail close by but that usually takes a LOT of walking, no dog so it's twice the walking... It would be fun to hit the 4wheeler trails and look for some mountain grouse. At the VERY least a fast dove hunt down along the river. Huns seem to be wherever huns are, they're hard to pattern, just lucky to trip across them.
Plans?

 

[BirdManMike]

Ive been running the dog for a couple weeks. Recruitment this year was terrible in my area. The largest family group of sharptail I have found has been 5. Im getting points on a lot of singles, older birds.

Huns have been hit or miss, two. The coveys either number in the teens or are a half dozen birds. Last year was some of the highest populations of huns Ive seen which means there will be enough around but there arent as many or as large of coveys for sure.

I believe the cause to be the cool, wet spring and early summer plus the utter lack of grasshoppers this year. They are only recently showing up and they are sparse.

I am debating on whether or not I want to fly a falcon this season. Ive had a couple good seasons (good hunting but otherwise stressful) and feel like a break. Will keep running the dog and see what game bird numbers are looking like end of Sept then trap a prairie falcon in October if Im feeling good about things. Ive flown birds enough seasons where local hun and/or grouse populations were in the gutter to ever want to struggle with that again - itd be different if I lived in the eastern part of the state.

 

[Nameless Range]

On the high ridges of southwest MT with my dog.

 

[ismith]

Ive been running the dog for a couple weeks. Recruitment this year was terrible in my area. The largest family group of sharptail I have found has been 5. Im getting points on a lot of singles, older birds.

Huns have been hit or miss, two. The coveys either number in the teens or are a half dozen birds. Last year was some of the highest populations of huns Ive seen which means there will be enough around but there arent as many or as large of coveys for sure.

I believe the cause to be the cool, wet spring and early summer plus the utter lack of grasshoppers this year. They are only recently showing up and they are sparse.

I am debating on whether or not I want to fly a falcon this season. Ive had a couple good seasons (good hunting but otherwise stressful) and feel like a break. Will keep running the dog and see what game bird numbers are looking like end of Sept then trap a prairie falcon in October if Im feeling good about things. Ive flown birds enough seasons where local hun and/or grouse populations were in the gutter to ever want to struggle with that again - itd be different if I lived in the eastern part of the state.

Been seeing a lot of huns in the Helena Valley. Have a pretty big covey hanging out around the house, might take my oldest kid out looking for some. He also wants to go after some pheasants.

 

[D4570]

Pheasants gota wait till later.

 

[golfer]

Been seeing a lot of huns in the Helena Valley. Have a pretty big covey hanging out around the house, might take my oldest kid out looking for some. He also wants to go after some pheasants.

I’ve been in this area over last 3 weeks and have been pretty impressed by the amount of Huns I’ve seen. Most have been coveys of 15 or more.

 

[mtmuley]

September 1st is my anniversary. Lots of years. Wife lets me grouse hunt if I want to. mtmuley

 

[300stw]

dogs and i are ready, but, after 16 years living on nd border, im now 550 miles from there, new job, building new place ect, not much time to go east. except to get more loads of my junk, gonna be hard to take not hunting birds 4 or 5 days a week for 4 months

 

[brockel]

September 1st is my anniversary. Lots of years. Wife lets me grouse hunt if I want to. mtmuley

Easy to remember

 

[brockel]

Depending on how hot it is I’ll get the pup out for his first grouse

 

[BirdManMike]

Been seeing a lot of huns in the Helena Valley. Have a pretty big covey hanging out around the house, might take my oldest kid out looking for some. He also wants to go after some pheasants.

Good to hear.

I’ve been running all public thus far. Going to run one of the ranches tomorrow to see what hun numbers look like there.

 

[Ought Six]

I’ll be shooting Huns and grouse over my 6 year old. He has turned into a fine hunter and friend.

 

[shrapnel]

Huns and grouse with a new to me old SXS shotgun…

 

[D4570]

HOW FUN!!!

 

[coleslaw]

This will be year three for Chief and I. Not sure what I'm looking forward to more... watching my best friend point and retrieve birds for me or just sitting at truck camp watching deer as the sun sets while I sip a glass of scotch with him.

 

[406dn]

I have been getting ready for some field trials in Idaho, a bit past the middle of September. I won't hunt until after that. The birds are pretty decent again this year. Most mornings and hour and change run will result in four finds or so.

In my old age, I don't kill nearly as many birds as back in the day. I still thrill to watching a nice bird dog do its thing.

Good luck to all.

 

[texwest44]

I've got a rough season coming up this year - I'm taking my uncles out for their first grouse hunt(s), and they're ~70-85 years old and can't get up and down steep terrain easily at all. On top of that, and I just moved to a new place in northwestern MT from Helena where the cover is thicker and rougher in general, with not a lot of road access, and I'm trying to keep my head up about it but I'm afraid we won't be able to get into many birds.

My hope is that one of them will be able to bring their bird dog, but the dog is fairly green and only has one season's worth of experience with quail up to now.

Going to be interesting.....

 

[ismith]

Huns and grouse with a new to me old SXS shotgun…


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The silver lining to the conquest and destruction of Britian is the amount of awesome British shotguns coming to the US. Where did you find that one, Bozeman?

 

[Flynarrow]

Predicted Ninety degrees first few days of Sept in west Montana means more fishing or getting up to the high country.....3 degrees per thousand feet means getting very high.

 

[MNHunter67]

We’ll be chasing duskies and sprucies in west central Montana in the mornings. Hoping to see some big strides from my wire hair this year.