It was a chore to unpack everything without actually unloading the SUV, but I finally got everyone ready and we let the quivering dogs hit the ground.
Kassie the rookie. Kassie actually got in a few hunts last year that I posted.
Cash the veteran. I told about how Cash came to be our dog back in March. He's an experienced dog, but this is my first year hunting with him.
We saw one hen pheasant but no roosters. I'm sure there were some there, but we had no luck finding them.
My plan was to stop and hunt a couple more places on our way to the hotel, but we were well behind schedule, very tired from driving, and adjustments have to be made when traveling with the family. Our only stop between the short hunt and the hotel was to unpack the cooler and eat a sandwich and drink a soda.
After checking into the hotel and laying around for a couple of hours, we piled into the vehicle and drove around to find some of the hunting areas that we had never laid eyes on. I thought we'd get in another short hunt, but it turned into a scouting trip. The scouting trip proved productive when we located several pheasants along a road. One side was open for hunting the other side not, but it appeared the birds would be roosting on the open side. We also found several whitetails entering the back of a hayfield from a thicket along the river. We now had a plan for Friday.......hunt pheasants early morning until mid-day, nap for a couple of hours, then my youngest son and I would sit with our backs to a bale of hay with the .308 on a bipod for the last couple hours of daylight.
The pheasants were still there in the morning, but I suppose acted normal for birds hunted by the masses and started flushing before we were in range. I nocked one rooster down that flushed on the outer limits of "in range" but it was clear that he'd be running. We searched for quite a while but could not locate the bird. We did get one good point from Cash on a rooster that had held during the search but the bird flushed straight at a ranch house. When he finally flew clear I found my chamber empty (???) and my son missed a shot through the tree branches. I was kicking myself for taking the long shot on the first rooster and for missing out on the second opportunity. I could blame it all on rookie mistakes, but I've swung a shotgun on enough waterfowl and quail in my younger days to know better.
We still had a lot of cover to hunt and the birds appeared to have spread out along a wash that meandered across the field. There was also another wash that we could swing around to from the end of the property and likely find more birds. However, just before calling off our search for the rooster I knocked down; two trucks pulled up and asked if we planned to hunt the whole field. Seemed like a dumb question, but at least they were polite enough to ask. They were actually very polite. I told them we could just hunt the side we were on if they wanted to hunt the other side. They kept their hunt short but definitely killed more birds than we did, which wasn't difficult considering we only put up three hens.
I believe our biggest problem was when the cattle (calves) that were scattered across the back of the field decided to herd up and come investigate the dogs. Kassie interested them the most because they frightened her and she started to run from them until she barked at them over her shoulder and that frightened them. I saw the lightbulb go off in her head when they retreated from her bark, but couldn't get her turned around before she chased the whole herd while barking back through all the cover the birds had landed in. I doubt that would have went over well with the rancher and vowed to not let her near the cattle again. I'll have to admit it wasn't one of my proud bird dog owner moments.
We made one more attempt to find the wounded bird once the dogs had settled down, but they never found the bird. I was pretty disgusted with our first real morning hunting roosters on our own. I suspect it looked like a circus to the guys across the field. Regardless, we were hunting and that is a whole lot better than working.
With only one evening worth of scouting, I decided to drive around scouting several more areas with one more mid-day hunt in mind before heading back to the hotel. I flushed a covey of huns around noon when I got out of the truck at the parking area of the location I decided to try. My boys didn't even see them but the covey landed at the edge of a disked field just over a rise not 50 yards away. I hurried the boys out of the car once I had everything ready. We left the dogs in the car with my wife and daughter and basically walked over the hill and flushed the covey. My oldest son and I knocked three birds down on the rise. To my surprise, all three of them bounced in the disked field and ran like the wind.
Kicking myself for not letting the dogs out to start with, we grabbed Cash immediately and he started trailing wounded birds. It took about 30 minutes total over about 100 yards, but Cash did a great job and pointed all three of them. He then proceeded to retrieve each of them when they bounced across the ground fleeing from us. While not the roosters we should have had, we were happy to avoid being skunked.
After lunch, a shower, and an "almost" nap, my youngest and I headed back to the hay field to see if he couldn't fill a deer tag on the last evening of the youth deer hunt. The outcome turned into more work than I really needed on a "bird hunt", but he was happy to kill a whitetail doe (his second in as many years) about an hour before dark.
Immediately after dropping his doe like a rock at 98 yards.
Montana whitetail doe
"I want to drag it by myself"
That didn't last, so we both started dragging. "Do you think you could carry it over your shoulders if I carried the gun?" Well.........I've never done it that way, but why not......dragging a doe without a strap stinks.
The deer hunt prevented me from scouting for more birds, so the following morning's hunt was planned from maps and aerial photos. We arrived earlier than necessary to beat anyone else that had this location in mind then sat in the vehicle snoozing and drinking coffee for half an hour just like the previous morning. Once it was good and light, I stood on some hay bales and decided where we'd start. Into the wind seemed as good a direction as any.
The photo makes it look almost dark but it was sunrise and well after legal shooting light.
Other than a rooster that flushed into the sun across an irrigation canal, the first location was unproductive. We decided to drive and see if anyone was hunting the location of the previous morning's circus since we hadn't hurt the birds any. No one was there, so we decided to do a short hunt around the same cover as the day before. I was still holding out on the slim chance we might find yesterday's cripple, but was completely surprised when the dog's got birdy and the cripple struggled to flush just above the grass and my son made the shot. He let the bird get well out away from him, his shot was in a safe direction away from everyone and he had both dogs behind him, but I still gave him some fatherly safety reminders about low flying birds.
We still considered it his first rooster.
I wasted no time making another rookie mistake and had a rooster flush to my right while taking photos of my son with his bird. We noted where he landed, finished up my ill-timed photo shoot, and headed his direction with Cash. We could not find the rooster, but did see a flock of 30 or so sharptails flush 100 yards ahead of us. We kept hunting with hopes that Cash could find and hold the rooster. He pointed when we got near where the sharpies had flushed. My son stood and watched as I flushed a sharpie into the wind. When I realized he was just watching, I asked "why aren't you shooting". To which he replied........."it’s a hen". He'd never flushed a sharptail and thought it was a hen pheasant and knew those were off limits. I'm glad he was thinking about it, but I should have yelled "sharptail" so he'd have known. Soon after a second sharptail flushed on my side with the wind and I promptly missed it. A short distance later we put another sharpie up and I had my first bird of the day.
After not finding the rooster that we had started after, we headed into town and grabbed some coffee and a quick breakfast for the road then headed toward another area we'd never seen on the other side of town. We got lucky when my wife spotted a rooster flying and then landing next to a Russian olive along an irrigation ditch just before we parked. There were no questions where we'd be heading to.
Cash locked up 100 yards before we reached the bird my wife had seen. My youngest was on top of the irrigation ditch and I walked into the ditch to flush the bird. I proceeded to promptly miss the rooster and my 12 year old promptly showed me up and killed his first rooster with the little youth pump 20 ga.
I was blaming my poor shooting on the fact that I let my older son shoot my 11-87 and I resorted to one of my 870 turkey guns with a 23" barrel. I'm not sure either of them was buying my excuse.
During the shooting four roosters flushed well ahead of us where the bird had previously landed. We hunted on up through the irrigation ditch then back around to where the birds had headed. Unfortunately the birds had all crossed a creek and the property was off limits. We hunted our side of the creek then hooked back around toward the truck and Cash got birdy then Kassie pointed. It wasn't a rock solid point like I've seen from her before, but it was clear that she was pointing. When the rooster flushed, my oldest and I doubled on the bird. I didn't realize he had even shot, but him and the younger were convinced that he had hit the bird also. It must have been my previous performance that had them questioning if I could shoot at all. The bird bounced and hit the ground running in an open hay field. Both dogs took up the chase, but it was Cash that put an end to the chase and retrieved the bird.
My daughter took this photo from the vehicle after we killed the last rooster. Cash looks tired.
We hunted along two more irrigation ditches but didn't find any additional birds. We called it a day considering it was approximately 2 PM. We had scratched out three roosters and one sharptail. The dogs were wore out and needed the rest same as us. I planned another scouting mission that evening but left the hotel too late and only saw a covey of huns fly across the road in a location that was off limits.
The next morning was our last morning before driving back home and the rest of the crew wanted to sleep in, so the dogs and I were on our own. I picked another location to hunt that I'm sure had been hunted plenty but there was good cover at the back of it that required crossing a deep wash out that I thought may not have been hunted that hard. I also realized that its back corner met up at the back corner of the first property we hunted where Kassie chased the cattle. From there I had heard several roosters in this new property's direction.
I'm not sure if it's just the deer and elk hunter in me, but I get to these locations early before daylight. Maybe early isn't the norm with upland hunters but I did find that by listening at day break I could hear roosters in several locations. Also, while readying my vest and gun, a rooster flew up the fence row from his roost toward me and I watched him land in a nearby thicket. No question where I'd start. However, I was unable to prove that my previous shooting problems excuse was true, and promptly missed the rooster with my 11-87 20 minutes later when he flushed. I wasn't happy, but I did have to let the bird launch into hyper drive and bank hard right before shooting since he too flushed straight at some grain bins and a barn.
We continued back through the property along yet another irrigation ditch and Cash went on point. The first and second bird that flushed was hens. Cash held tight. The third bird flushed straight at the sun and at Kassie on top of the irrigation ditch berm, when it finally got out of the sun I saw that it was a rooster but it was too late. Then the fourth bird came up banking left as well but not in the sun and I promptly missed my second rooster of the morning. At this point I'm sure I wasn't the only one thinking this is ridiculous. The dogs were probably tired of this routine. I was never a great shot, but I didn't suck this bad either. I apparently am extremely rusty from all the years of just point shooting turkeys and abandoning all wingshooting.
We disgustedly headed for the back cover and crossed the deep wash. If I hadn't heard roosters in that direction at daybreak I would have headed back toward the truck I was so disgusted with my shooting. Both dogs got birdy 50 yards beyond the wash. Cash pointed and a couple hens and a rooster flushed. This rooster wasn't so lucky and I solidly dropped him flushing to my right. Cash retrieved the bird while Kassie went out of her mind with the amount of bird scent. I had moved forward 25 yards during the retrieve because I couldn't see where the bird had fallen. Immediately after the retrieve the dogs started the same routine.......Cash pointed, Kassie hesitated and several hens flushed then a rooster flushed. I made good on this bird flushing left and dropped my second rooster. OK! That is more like it.
While loading the two into my vest both dogs were going bonkers from the amount of bird scent. Kassie proceeded to flush a rooster and I watched where he landed. While trying to loop around the bird to get a good wind position, Cash was obviously trailing birds that were running in some of the shorter grass. Just as he went on point well ahead of me a hen flushed then he moved left while scenting the ground and pointed again just before a rooster flushed still too far for me to shoot. I finally got both dogs off of the running birds in an attempt to try and get a point on my final rooster where I thought they'd hold.
For my final rooster of the morning and my first "on my own" limit of wild Montana roosters, Kassie located and pointed the previous rooster that I had marked. I made good on her point and cleanly dropped the bird.
Both dogs were beat on the walk out and once away from the overwhelming bird scent they followed right on my heels.
Kassie guarding my limit of birds.
