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

[corndog1]

I'm gonna go out and miss a few doves

 

[ismith]

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.View attachment 338057

It’s still OK to call them blues.

 

[coleslaw]

One more sleep. The dog was watching me pack the truck last night. Would not leave my side... love how they always seem to know

 

[MTGunner]

Up in the mountains with my old lab to walk fire roads tomorrow AM. 28 gauge O/U, cylinder and improved choke. Hope I don’t choke too bad. MTG

 

[MTGunner]

Three up, three down.

 

[Rie Bread]

I missed a grouse with my 10mm this morning :f

 

[MTGunner]

My ten year old female lab did a great job today. Pointed two and flushed the last one. I was a lucky shooter today. Hunted fire roads in the mountains. Little 28 gauge with #8 shot. I need as many pellets as I can get.

 

[Hem]

Guess my head isn't in the game, up until yesterday I thought the opener was today.
Pretty pathetic shooting but I'll take a limit.

 

[802flyfish]

With these temps we skipped opener. Almost 100 degrees for opener and rest of the week calling for low 90’s… Already heard from my buddy of a dog passing on opener due to heat stroke.

We decided to take a PNW road trip. Will be hunting Blues when we get back.

 

[Flatbrimmer]

With these temps we skipped opener.

Yeah…. Can’t pack all that out before it spoils….

 

[alecvg]

First of a couple yesterday with my boy. Love grouse.

 

[shrapnel]

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?

I love the British SXS. I have a few, but rarely find them locally. I got the Greener from Gunsinternational.

However, I did get this one locally at Hill Rod And Gun…

 

[Elky Welky]

Great start to the season, I'm glad archery elk didn't open over labor day so I could go after the birds with something a little more effective than judo tips.

 

[454]

Howie and I had a fun opening morning chasing sharp-tails.

 

[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.

Im confident of this assessment of game numbers in my valley at this point.

There are some local pockets of huns that did well around a few stubble fields on the local benches, but, other than these coveys, bird numbers are generally in the gutter., both the huns and the sharptail. These stubble fields are in Block Management and its a literal race by the local gun guys to get signed in and onto them every morning. One of the guys I know commented yesterday that he cant get close to the birds any longer -- no shit, they are getting bumped and/or shot at every day, probably multiple times per day.

Outside of those birds, points are sparse. Even the private ranches that are usually my bread-and-butter - places I am lucky to either be the only person with bird hunting access or one of fewer than a handful - have very few birds in unusually small coveys. Im still running (the amazing) Greta Grouse 3 or 4 days per week and getting points maybe 1/2 the outings. Today we got points on 2 'coveys' of huns - if one could call them that - one was 5 birds and the other 3.

Its strange not being focused on falconry day in, day out. Its been a long time since I havent had a bird I am either training or hunting this time of year, but I am glad I did not trap a falcon or take one of a few young birds that was offered to me (free of charge) from a couple different breeders. Falconry can be a real struggle without regular flights on game, and it feels like the local bird pops are headed into a trough ala 2017-2020 (those seasons were rough).

Dont know what to do with myself, maybe Ill do some elk hunting - its been a few years since Ive put any effort into it.