Da Hunden Stormen

I can't remember the movie where I heard the title. It was supposed to be a comic translation for dogs the Germans used in Dubya Dubya Two (I'm sure it's wrong)...but I remember it made me laugh. The same can be said for Scar and Rebel, a solid and dependable pair of guide dogs loaned to us for our trip to Montana by a close friend and hunting buddy. Scar, aptly named for an injury sustained to his head during birth complications, is a goofy Vizsla that feels most at home in your lap, or hunting running pheasants. Rebel is an almost entirely roan short-hair, not very big at all, but with astonishing ground speed. Together, they're the hap-hap-happiest brace of hunting dogs since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny Kaye. They even play jokes on eachother. For example, they shared a hole in the trailer for the trip, and Scar would purposely block Rebel's entrance by holding up his paws, like a defender blocking a point guard's passing options. Like I said, lots of laughs.

Anyway, neither had ever smelled a hun or a sharptail before, but you wouldn't have known it. Both broke free of the closer hunting patterns more suited to preserve birds and ranged through the prairie. We shot huns, sharpies, and pheasants over both dogs. This post and picture is my tribute to them. They, and their owner, are always welcome in my truck.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Have you ever stuffed yourself full of a steak dinner? Sure.

What about when the waitress comes by with the tray full of desserts? They look delicious, right? Your date says they look good, but she's full. Translation: "I want some of that chocolate thingy, but I prefer not to look like a pig."

Such was the case on the way back from Montana. We had bagged sage grouse, sharpies, and huns. I killed three new species of birds. What else could I ask for without looking like a pig? Well, a prairie chicken or two wouldn't hurt, right?

So, back to the sandhills of Nebraska! Dogs were weary, skinny, and hardened, so throw the Hail Mary, put all six down. Getting e-collars and Astro's on that bunch proved to be a task in and of itself. They were fired up and ready to go for our last hunt of the trip.

Long story short, Ted's knee started hurting, the wind was strong, and I would have gotten lost without the GPS. But, we got our chicken, a few doves, and a sharptail. I also missed an easy double.

Part VIII: Goodbye, thank you, see you next year

The last hunt was bittersweet to say the least. We were slow to get out of bed, dehydrated and with headaches; I'll let you guess why. The morning was cool, not cold, and a bit humid. Having a fullsize pickup and a dog trailer made navigating the mountain roads a bit tricky, especially when we discovered the BMA sign-in wasn't where it was supposed to be. At least we got to see some more beautiful country before we could make a safe turnaround.

We decided to hunt a large patch of grass laying on the top of a plateau. The edges gave way to rimrock, and the hills were straight and steep as the descended to the surrounding pasture ground. I'm not sure if it was the proper rotation or not, but Sage and Dottie were put down for our last hunt in Montana. I think we were both anticipating sharptails, as we had plenty of success on them, and wanted to end our trip on a high note. We hunted along the two track following the edge of the field.

It wasn't long before the Astro chirped, and we perceived Sage on point ahead of us.

The point yielded no birds, and Sage hunted further into the field as we walked tired, lazily, and content regardless of the outcome. It wasn't long before I heard the familiar chirped again, indicating Sage on point 150 yards to our flank in the field. I used the device to get a bearing on his direction, and I started my approach towards him, anticipating a premature flush of sharptails already weary from hunting pressure. I saw Sage and knew he had birds. As I approached a covey of huns flushed tightly together, shrieking as they accelerated away from the danger. They were within ethical gun range for a 20, but they were so tight that I made the snap decision not to shoot, as it would have felt like flock shooting. I knew we could pick them up again, maybe from a different angle, and both of us could get clean shots. The birds flew towards the rimrock, and we lost view because of the crest of the hill as the edge falls off. We both thought they sat down right on the edge, and with the topographical boundary, that they'd have nowhere to run. We crossed a barbed wire fence as quietly as we could, and kept the dogs close. We walked all the way to the edge, and no birds. Then, Sage when on point again right at the edge.

I crept to the edge, fearful of the rock giving way, and peered over the dropoff. Then I noticed a porkie in the rocks below me; Sage must have been smelling him. We worked the area over again, and now Dottie pointed.

Just the porkie, again. We worked around the edge some more, and paused to take some pictures.

We hunted a little more and managed to put up one sharptail with no shots fired. I was pleased, nonetheless. Looking back, I'm not sure if I'll ever get to do something like this again, at least not until after I retire. Ten days away from home and work is tough to leverage. But there's always hope. Next time, I only have one wish: better weather.

Goodbye Montana. Thank you.

Part VII: Just pictures

Setting off in search of huns...

Initially, we found lots of pheasants, and had plenty of quality dogwork.

Dottie has pointed almost every gamebird in the US. She nailed her first covey of huns, like she has most of the other birds she's hunted. A proud owner...

Sage was late on this group of sharptails that busted ahead of our approach.

"If I stand still, maybe they won't see me..."

Can you find the dog on point?

A closer shot...

Part VI Videos

I apologize for the poor quality, but these were both taken with handheld point-and-shoot digital cameras. In the first clip Ted films me shooting a sharptail over Doc's point. You can see how well the other dogs backed--we had a total of four on the ground.



In this second clip Ike tallies a nice find, and Ted kills our limit sharptail over him. You can see a secord bird flush as the first is falling.

Part VI: WTF Just Happened?

Note: This trip encompassed 10 days. This post is dedicated to one hunt lasting only 90 minutes. I hope I never forget this particular hunt.

From Lewistown we decided to hunt an area that I found using Google Earth, and posted about earlier in The Gems of Internet Scouting. After a brief hunt that only produced pheasants we decided to move on. We set our sights on a big piece of state land where we thought we'd find sharptails. They had been easy to find, and after frustrating ourselves with huns it would be nice to shoot the gun some more. Up until this point we were only running two dogs down at a time in the interest of preserving our hounds over the long term, and keeping things simple. I also believe that there is a steep curve of diminishing return running multiple dogs. But, the weather was slightly cooler, there was actually a humid breeze, and the land was large and featureless. So in a moment of rushed judgement down went Ike, Doc, and Ted's Dottie and Vegas. "F*** it."

The field was like a table top with the edges falling off into lower pasture land. I followed the edge of a ridge and Ted stayed to my right, bisecting the field as he walked. Doc was off to the races, but I could follow him with the Astro as he hunted beyond 400 yards. I noticed the grass seemed to have been planted as it was in tight rows. After a few hundred yards with no action I thought that even the sharptails would now elude us. And then it started. Bird busting one, two, three at a time here and there. The wind was at our backs, and the two bigger running setters each ran beyond these birds. After a few wild flushes the temptation became too strong and Ted dropped a double. I think that is when it started.

We reached a fence and opted to circle back around to the truck. Ike made a long cast down the fence line and established point. Doc saw and hunted towards him and birds broke as Doc crossed the fence. At the end of the fence we turned right back towards the truck, into the wind. It wasn't long before we saw this in the distance ahead...

Ike instinctively honored, as he has since he was a pup, from a hundred yards or more. As I went beyond Doc's nose Ike probably started creeping, but I didn't notice. I cleanly killed the sharptail and as Doc attempted the retrieve Ike rushed ahead in search or more birds.

Then all hell broke loose.

Ike would point, and Doc would bust the bird. Then Doc would point, and Ike would bust it. We lost several birds like this. All the while I'm screaming at the top of my lungs in the wind, trying to get to the e-collar transmitter, or the camera; it was pure madness. Doc and Ike, in their competitiveness, even stopped ignoring the e-collar on the light setting, so it went up. This went on for what seemed like a while, but was probably only five minutes. Right there we ended up having a harsh training session on "whoa." I have never been so red-faced in the field before. My voice was hoarse. Even now my blood pressure goes up just thinking about it--I was so angry. The most frustrating part is I knew that both of them knew better, and they chose to ingore me, and for that the "team" suffered. Frankly, I felt embarassed in front of Ted.

Eventually the dogs put it together and we were able to finish our limits with good dog work. We even got some video that I'll be posting later.

Not bad for a short walk under the Big Sky...

I'm not sure why I took this picture; I wasn't particularly pleased with either of these no good butt sniffin' bird bustin' biscuit eaters.

Now THIS is a gaggle of birds. Count 'em, six sharptails in one hand!

We unceremoniously posed for pictures, put the dogs up, and cleaned birds only trading a few words between eachother. Then we sat on the tailgate each sipping a cold brew. I think we were both reflecting what just happened for a few minutes, and I broke the silence with "that was the most stressful limit of birds I've ever shot in my entire life." Ted agreed.

Part V: Lewistown!

From the Hi Line we pushed towards Lewistown. We wanted to hunt larger expanses of land for huns, as opposed to the birds that seemed tied to structure in the northeast. We thought it would cut down on driving between spots and wasting the cooler part of the day. We also hoped to make it into the mountains for some grouse. On the way we drove through the Missouri Breaks...quite an odd place.

We found an area that had some state land we could camp on, and were exicted to see a covey of huns and some pheasants from the road near where we planned on hunting. Ted cooked the sage grouse for dinner. He, and the dogs, thought it was edible. As we prepared to hit the sack the coyotes started their evening calls. Ted spotted some just a couple hundred yards way with his night vision scope. That night he slept with his .357. Being without a pistol, I slept with Ike and my shotgun.

The next morning Ted flushed a pair of huns out of our camp as he exited his tent. We reckoned it was going to be a good day. In short, the pheasants were numerous, and the other birds were tough. Even the coyotes wouldn't come out and play during the heat.

Looking west towards our camp...

Looking north, towards camp...

"Point! Somewhere out there..."

I'm not big on hero shots, but both dog and hunter really earned this hun.

Trying to call in 'yotes in the heat of the day...

Part III: Hot and Hotter

After a long cast to the north from SE MT we found ourselves near Circle, MT. I knew the pheasant hunting in that part of the state was pretty good, but I wasn't sure about sharpies or huns. I knew they'd be there, but in what kind of densities? No other way to find out than to put dogs on the ground and investigate.

On the drive in to a BMA we saw LOTS of young pheasants, simply staggering considering the perceived lack of cover, at least compared to Kansas. We usually have much more CRP and edge cover, but here the only visible cover was wheat stubble cut rather high. Since pheasants aren't in season, we tried to avoid these birds and focus on stuff we thought would hold sharptails and huns. In the first photo is Ted on our first push along a strip of cover splitting two cut wheat fields. Again, the scale of the agriculture is amazing. I think there are plenty of places in western Kansas with similar scale, but it doesn't feel lquite ike Big Sky Country.

A quick circle with Bodie and Doc, the loaner dogs, produced nothing despite Doc's impressive cast to the far reaches of the strip. At least he saved us some walking! Back at the truck the landowner stopped by for a chat. He was incredibly friendly, and even drew some directions on the map where we would find birds. I think he felt sorry for us, and I'm sure he thought we were crazy to come all the way from Kansas to hunt his little piece of Montana heaven. Maybe we are crazy.

Driving to where the landowner thought we should go we encountered our first covey of huns, a large covey that broke out of the ditch and flew a short ways into a wheat field. It wasn't on the BMA, so we made a mental note and proceeded to hunt an field of CRP set between two coulees, again with the Loaners. The farmer said earlier "you can shoot all the grouse you want here" as he pointed to the map. He was right. Doc was the first to encounter birds. His enthusiasm coupled with the lack of wind meant some bumped birds. Dogs were pointing and birds were getting up, and dogs were breaking and putting up more and more birds. I might have wounded a sharpie but I lost focus when Doc instantly located more birds. After the dust settled we noticed Bode was gone, but the Astro indicated he was coming back. He had followed that sharptail more than 200 yards and was making a stylish retrieve. Five minutes later he pinned a lone grouse on the edge of the CRP, which Ted dropped, and Bode completed the retrieve. Bode was quickly establishing credibility, and it was obvious he was going to contribute on an already capable string of bird dogs in their prime.

We tried to locate some huns around some edge cover and grain bins, and beside some good dogwork on pheasants, we were unsuccessful. By then the temperature was approaching 80 degrees so we called it a day and drove to Circle to meet up with two friends of Ted's. From there we pushed to NE Montana to focus on huns. We hunted the next three days looking for huns, and finding sharptails and pheasants. The heat only allowed us to hunt until mid morning, and we'd usually scout the second half of each day. One morning we found four coveys of huns in one spot, so we were having some success. But because they were so spread out and tied to certain landmarks, Ted and I decided to push west and get away from the agriculture to hunt the larger expanses of sage country and native grasses. I think I prefer to hunt birds in more natural landscapes as opposed to ag country.

Montana and Back, Part I: The Sandhills

Friday, Sept 11, 7AM

Arrived at Ted's house with Sage, Ike, Doc, and gear...pouring rain. We both got pretty wet loading up the truck and trailer. As we hooked up the trailer, we discovered the lights were not working. I had already spent four evenings trying to fix the failed wiring, and eventually replaced everything. It worked fine on my truck at my house. We tried a couple things, but didn't want to tear into it in the downpour, so we packed a digital multimeter and some electrical tape and decided to hit the road and fix later. In messing with the wiring, I got completely soaked and had to change clothes. We were on the road by 8 AM.

Five hours of driving in the rain and we were in Grand Island, NE. Lack of options and wanting to push on, we stopped at Wendy's for lunch. What a horrible experience--that's all I'll say. The plan was to park in the Wal-Mart lot and fix the trailer, but when we left Wendy's I noticed the lights were working. Nice! On to Halsey, NE.Road warriors...


We decided to hunt the Nebraska National Forest on the way to break up the drive and get the dogs a taste of the birds they were to encounter in Montana.

Before any "hotspotter" fingers are pointed, I'll explain something. The forest is well known, hunted by quite a few folks already, and frankly is very tough hunting. We worked hard for the birds we took, covering many miles in the sandy prairie, up and down hills, sweating and tired the whole time. On top of that, the dogs had to be flawless on birds for us to be successful. Not may people have the mettle, physical and mental, or the dogs for this place. We spent the Friday evening scouting, running dogs, and shooting any doves that we encountered. We didn't see any grouse, and I was concerned we were in for a tough day tomorrow. We stayed in Thedford and had dinner at Stub's. They don't have mashed potatoes in the evenings, only for breakfast. Huh.

Ted and I were up well before first light the following morning, and I think I lost a filling on the broken up asphalt road into the forest. I'm sure the dogs had a headache. My Ike and Ted's Vegas got the first call of the trip. We both had high hopes for these two. I expected Ike to be the dog of the trip because of his wide range and reliable nose. He's also the toughest dog I've ever hunted behind. Vegas had lived in the shadow of Ted's other dog, an older pointer, but he had been hunting them seperate last season and she was becoming a strong bird finder, and she was already the best "dead" hunting dog we had in our trailer.

The ground and vegetation was heavy with dew from yesterday's rain. In just a few minutes we were soaked to our waists, and Ike was actually cold and shivering. Not long into the hunt I took this picture...

The sandhills is the most surreal place I have ever hunted. Because the terrain is so uniformly dynamic, you can easily get turned around, even with a GPS. Early in the day we used the sun to keep track of our heading, but as it rose we depended heavily on the GPS to keep us pointed in the right direction. This flat spot offered our first sharptail encounter, a bird that flushed wild ahead of Ike just as he established point.

Then we started to connect in this low area; both Ted and I were able to put sharptails in the bag on account of Vegas; my first sharpie!

We also each took sharptails at the top of the ridge following the draw. There seemed to be no discernable pattern to the birds. They were high, low, in flat and in hilly areas, sun and shadows, too. On the way back to the truck Ike pointed a large covey spread out in a flat area from quite a distance. They broke, and of course I wasted my two barrels on the first birds that got up, and was empty for the birds I nearly stepped on. By now, I should know better.

We re-dogged with Doc and Bode. Doc belongs to my buddy Wes, and Bode is the Garmin DC30 coverdog, owned by Ted's friend Bronson. I have no idea why these guys trusted their companions with hooligans like us. We struck out in a different direction from the truck and were quickly into more birds, several flushing wild ahead and far to our flanks. Doc did point one covey, but again they broke too soon. I think the high sun and the heavy winds had them skittish.

One nice thing about the sandhills is that there is at least one windmill in sight from every peak, so you can water your dogs at nice intervals. But, the cows like them too.

It's important to keep your dogs watered, both from a hydration and scenting standpoint.

After the heat was too much, we turned our attention to prairie dogs. All the shots we took with Ted's .223 were over 200 yards. There were a few close calls, but no kills.