After a weekend of hunt tests with KlM-GNA, we headed off to Montana and North Dakota to kick off our 2023-24 hunting season chasing Sharp-tailed Grouse and Hungarian Partridge. We headed to north east Montana first, where we ran into other upland friends of ours: Logan, Nick, Bill, and Mario. It was our first time hunting this place but luckily good cover was not hard to find. We found a lot of grouse, and then decided to focus more on huns toward the end of our time in the Big Sky state. The highlights of the Montana leg of this trip for me were:
Watching Gretchen shoot her first Montana bird over a point by her young dog Archer.
Shooting two grouse over Archer points. He hunted a good bit last season but was very young so I didn’t really shoot any pointed birds over him last year that I can remember.
Watching Anja do some of her best work on two walks, despite being unable to reward her as well as I should have due to poor shooting.
We left Montana and headed to north west North Dakota for a few more days of hunting. There we met up with Bobbe Carney, who bred Gretchen’s first KlM, Ebbi, and who has been featured previously on the podcast. Bobbe was fresh off judging a breed show for a second weekend of hunt tests for the breed club and rolled into town with her three dogs, Yana, Cate, and the youngster Hank. We had four pretty incredible days of hunting. The bird numbers where we were hunting this year were pretty awesome and there seemed to be minimal hunting pressure. Though we have been to this area that past few years, we hunting almost all new covers this time, adding to our list of pins in OnX for future seasons. On this leg of the trip the hunts that really stick out in my mind are:
Hunting a new spot with Gretchen where we both shot birds over Aura’s points. One of the birds I shot on that walk had to be a 60 yard shot. When I touched off the trigger I sort of couldn’t believe it when the bird fell out of the sky. I had broken a wing and Aura got to make a nice long blind retrieve of that bird.
A hunt with Anja where she had a ton of points but the birds kept getting up before I could get in shooting range. I could tell she was getting frustrated but luckily I was able to get one grouse and one hun for her on that walk. As a side note, we found a lot of huns in habitat that was not the normal stuff (field edges and shelter belts). We were finding them in the middle of shortgrass prairie. I suppose this is indicative of how good the populations were this year that we were finding them in places like that.
My favorite hunt of the trip was on the last day where Aura and I walked a solid 2-3 miles without seeing a thing. She got birdy a bunch but we just couldn’t pin anything down. Then she started tracking furiously and produced a jackrabbit. I shot it but although injured it was still able to run at 3/4 speed. Aura ran it down, grabbed it by the backside (there was no hair on the tail and a tooth gash in right side rump. Rabbits yell and sound almost like infant children. She transferred up to the hare’s neck where she held it tightly until it was dispatched. Then she retrieved it to hand.
I’m not telling this graphic story for any reason other than to explain the dog’s commitment to finding and recovering game. I hear a lot of folks with pointing dogs talk about their dogs pointing birds but not being reliable retrievers. I just think that’s unethical. Losing birds because your dog won’t recover them falls under wanton waste in my opinion. And you can hunt most upland game reasonably well without a dog. So most of the purpose of hunting with a dog is so you can use their nose to find AND RECOVER game. Part of the reason we like these German lines of dogs is because of their desire to hunt and recover game. While the pointing is my favorite part to watch, it takes a backseat in terms of utility for me in comparison to all of the things they do to recover game after the shot.
Right after the our hare coursing event, Aura walked maybe another 20 yards before locking up tight on point. In the same piece of cover that the jackrabbit came out of, she had ended up on the opposite (down wind) side. We found out moments later that a group of about 9 Sharp-tailed grouse had held in that cover throughout that whole rabbit situation including shots, a barking dog, and a yelling hare. I doubled on grouse early in the staggered flush, but was unable to get a third bird out of it because I had put a water bottle in my shell pocket and it was covering my shells. I had winged one of the birds and could see it running so Gretchen sent Ebbi on a retrieve of that bird from the other side of that piece of cover.
We also saw a ton of pheasants (more of them than anything else) on this trip. So hopefully we’ll be able to come back to this area during pheasant season! We also ran into Ron from The Hunting Dog Podcast while we were out there. Bobbe recorded a podcast with him that I’ll be sure to share if/when it’s released.
This was a really wonderful start to our season. Our dogs all did a wonderful job and I think Gretchen shot more birds this trip than her whole season last year. She’s really coming into her own and you can see the confidence and desire really growing in her. Bobbe also commented on the improvement in both her hunting abilities and the dog work this year. So big shoutout to Gretchen for being a badass!
We came home with a 60 quart cooler full of dressed out birds (heads and a wing attached for identification) and we’re working on clearing out the last bit of leftovers from last season to make room for more.
I hope your season is off to a good start! Happy hunting!
Liked this post?
