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Road trip visits Montana’s High Line

November 8, 2009 by Scott

You can see Canada from the deck of your safari-style tent at Sage Safaris, a brand-new hunting operation north of Havre, Montana. Between our neighbors to the north and the tents are more whitetails per square mile than I’ve ever seen, and healthy populations of sharptail grouse and ringneck pheasants.

Kind of “roughing it smoothly,” the tents are heated and the beds are soft. (See video here.) Most importantly, the game in the coulees and plains is plentiful … if you’re willing to work. Or should I say walk.

Buddy was in the zone, covering ground according to the cover (closer in the cattails, running bigger in the grasslands). Surprisingly, a sharptail was the first to fall to my gun following a stalk through short grass and low sagebrush. Several ringnecks flushed wild in the distance, skittish from the wind and sounds of a gang of humans – likely the first they’d heard all year.

Now, for a short commercial message:

Please remember to vote NOW for your favorite dog, non-profit, and breed and help them and possibly yourself in our Wingshooting  USA features …

www.wingshootingusa.org … Take one of your kids hunting on the show next season. Click on the “Win a Shot on the Show” icon.

www.blackswingandclay.com… Cash for your conservation group, Cabela’s gear for you! Click on the “Hot Dog” icon.

www.nativedogfood.com … a TON of food for a hunting dog rescue club. Click on the “”Win a Ton” icon in the upper left corner.]

Thanks sponsors: Black’s Wing & Clay Waterfowl, Irish Setter, TriTronics and NSFF/www.wingshootingusa.org. Leave a comment, you might win a pair of Irish Setter boots!

Back to the story: The “moose pit” yielded our first pheasant, so named because even the plains of northen Montana harbor a few of the swamp donkeys. Buddy tracked, crept, pointed and then finally and tremblingly, held solid for this bird, which Jake dropped into the buffalo berry.

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North Dakota stop: Awesome Upland Road Trip

November 5, 2009 by Scott

TAILFEATHER INN, Mott, ND: So, it was a slow morning in terms of shots fired. The plan was to fly birds from the shelterbelts, then follow up with better pointing dog work on the singles in the grass they flew to. Sunflowers were still standing; the risk of losing Buddy in the endless rows uppermost in my mind. A giant owl flew from the trees, giving us a wake up call. Mark’s Wirehaired Pointing Griffon worked methodically up and back on the tree line, and for the most part so did Buddy.

Dozens flew, but most vectored for the far horizons rather than the grass. We got some birds up in gun range out of the trees, and Mark dropped a couple. But our first pass in the CRP acreage yielded just one exciting flush at the end, and it was so young nobody drew a bead.

A change of venue was in order after lunch. A quick call to the mayor of Mott got us on the family place northeast of town … a long, L-shaped shelterbelt full of tangled deadfall and ankle-hugging grass, not to mention the abandoned farm machinery buried in the vegetation. His Griff Abbey’s point was staunch and the flush went Mark’s way. Buddy delivered to hand (am I actually making headway on this training thing?). Moments later, Buddy’s point was followed by Abbey’s retrieve to Mark … turnabout being fair play.

A jaunt down a watercourse that ultimately produced a small beaver pond was highlighted by another staunch point by Buddy. As Dennis Daugherty readied his CZ 28 gauge, I moved in to flush and the bird almost flew up my pant leg! I twisted, we shot as one and shared credit for the final bird of the day.

Please remember to vote NOW for your favorite dog, non-profit, and breed and help them and possibly yourself in our Wingshooting  USA features …

www.wingshootingusa.org … Take one of your kids hunting on the show next season. Click on the “Win a Shot on the Show” icon.

www.blackswingandclay.com… Cash for your conservation group, Cabela’s gear for you! Click on the “Hot Dog” icon.

www.nativedogfood.com … a TON of food for a hunting dog rescue club. Click on the “”Win a Ton” icon in the upper left corner.]

Thanks sponsors: Black’s Wing & Clay Waterfowl, Irish Setter, TriTronics and NSFF/www.wingshootingusa.org. Leave a comment, you might win a pair of Irish Setter boots!

[Here's a preview of the country from our Montana hunt at Sage Safaris ... you can see Canada from the tents!]

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Awesome Upland Road Trip continues … Palouse country pheasants

October 29, 2009 by Scott

DOUBLE BARREL RANCH near Spokane, Wash.: It was one of those days. Buddy had spent our coffee-drinking time getting to know Ron Olmstead’s string of five dogs, socializing, acting like a pup, and otherwise being silly. Unfortunately, once in the field to make this episode of Wingshooting USA, his attitude didn’t change. We braced him with Ron’s Wirehaired Pointing Griffon named Scruffs, a deliberate, cooperative mop-top whose style just made Buddy look even worse than he was.

And he was. Unsteady, trying to steal points, morphing to spaniel on one bird and grabbing a mouthful of tail feathers as it flushed. Deciding discretion was the only part of valor left to salvage, I put him up.

Ron pulled in the big guns to augment Scruff: Evie, a wide-ranging smooth coated wirehair, and his pride and joy Wesley, a shorthair I’d hunted with years ago. He’s the “front seat” dog, entitled to spiffs the others aren’t due to seniority and skill.

There followed a series of scrambles up hill and down dale, through draws of canary grass, wild rye, cattails and alder, pursuing running ringnecks handled gracefully by the dogs. One memorable chase started in a ditch and ended on a knob where the rooster had no choice but fly as he exhausted his cover and hit bare dirt.

But of all the birds and dog work, one chase will remain etched in memory. You’ve read or heard some braggart claim he’s trained his dog to cut off a running pheasant, right? Whether training or instinct or a melding of both, Evie pussy-footed up one draw toward a farm road, then promptly broke off pursuit and headed for the top of a nearby hill. That beeline turned into a big curve, and she ended up above her point of departure and upwind of the bird.

Two more dogs followed the usual route, until all three locked up. Seeing little in the way of options, the ringneck emerged from the thick stuff to try making a break up a bare hillside. About then, it spotted the other two dogs and launched.

It was our last bird of the day, and fell, appropriately, to Ron’s gun.

Remember to vote for your favorite dog, non-profit, and breed and help them and possibly yourself in our Wingshooting  USA features …

www.wingshootingusa.org … Take one of your kids hunting on the show next season. Click on the “Win a Shot on the Show” icon.

www.blackswingandclay.com… Cash for your conservation group, Cabela’s gear for you! Click on the “Hot Dog” icon.

www.nativedogfood.com … a TON of food for a hunting dog rescue club. Click on the “”Win a Ton” icon in the upper left corner.]

Thanks sponsors: Black’s Wing & Clay Waterfowl, Irish Setter, TriTronics and NSFF/www.wingshootingusa.org. Leave a comment, you might win a pair of Irish Setter boots!

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Road trip, page four: cottonwood and creekbed pheasants

October 18, 2009 by Scott

 
ALONG LAWYER’S CREEK near Kamiah, Idaho: This desert rat was in heaven: three gun dogs, a cottonwood-lined creek and plenty of shade. Do you know the feeling? A change of scenery, fresh perspective, everything seems brand new and full of potential. All participants were cooler by a large measure than during our last hunt at Flying B Ranch, a blistering chukar expedition called on account of heat at 9 a.m. [Watch the very raw sky-cam footage, above.]

The ringnecks that dwelled among the thorns and cattails of this valley knew their neighborhood well, testing the dogs’ noses and hunters’ shooting abilities. Often more like a ruffed grouse hunt with brush-busting and tangle-inducing vines and branches, there were times when your shot was pointed at a white neck ring and nothing else in the shadows of chokecherry and cottonwood.

Guide Rich Coe’s dogs were trained to handle the bird flushing when needed, and they were needed often. Maybe you don’t like the idea (can you say porcupine?), but it was most appreciated by this bruised and battered, scratched and skinned-up hunter. Finding footing and swinging room for safe shots (two camera operators in tow) was tough enough without having to boost every bird from it’s hidey-hole.

And boost we did, flying a lot of birds, shooting at some, and hitting a few. One memorable flush ultimately yielded four roosters; we gawked instead of getting close enough for a shot, thinking each was the last to fly. (Count to four real slow … that’s how it played out.)

The jungle-like cover took its toll, as did the jinking and juking pheasants. But plenty of birds ended up headed for the table of a deserving family somewhere in the Kamiah metropolitan region.

Thanks sponsors: Black’s Wing & Clay Waterfowl, Irish Setter, TriTronics and NSFF/www.wingshootingusa.org. Leave a comment, you might win a pair of Irish Setter boots!

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Awesome Upland Road Trip, part 2: miles to go before we sleep!

October 12, 2009 by Scott

Fueled up? Yes. Dog in truck? Uh huh. Ammo purchased? Yep (ouch!). Must be time for the second leg of the Awesome Upland Road Trip. We’ll be making TV shows across the West, for next season’s Wingshooting USA.

New friends and old, some fresh scenery, and lots of birds are some of the highlights of this trip, which starts at Double Barrel Ranch near Spokane, Wash. Ron Olmstead is a sensitive dog trainer and great host and this is a repeat visit (we made some Cast & Blast episodes there about five years ago). Strong dog work (except when Buddy’s on the ground) is a given on the rolling hills and coulees of eastern Washington

From Spokane we vector toward Havre, Montana and a new outfit, Sage Safaris … interesting concept for an upland hunting operation. Sara and Jake have outfitted their place a la’ luxury African safari camps – floored tents, real beds, wood stoves, etc. Should be interesting.


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Dog is my co-pilot: Buddy always wears his seat belt.

Dog is my co-pilot: Buddy always wears his seat belt.

From Montana we head to beautiful downtown Mott, North Dakota. It’s been on my list since a friend here in town bought a place there just for pheasant hunting. We’ll be just down the road from Larry (there aren’t that many in Mott), at Tailfeather Inn, and hunting ringnecks and a few sharptails on nearby farms. Tailfeather promises an interesting stay: part of it is a restored convent (no smart remarks you former altar boys). Looks like the bird numbers are strong in this part of North Dakota, so we are pumped! Thanks to everyone at North Dakota’s tourism department for logistical support, especially Mark Zimmerman.

Then, it’s back to my favorite state, South Dakota. Ever had this thought? If there was a Nordstrom nearby, I’d try convincing my wife to move there! I’m hunting near Aberdeen, where I’ll help out at the Camp Gilbert Celebrity Hunt there, raising money for that great operation that supports kids with diabetes.

If they’re not sick of me and the crew after the celeb hunt, we will hunt the area for a couple more days, basing out of Rivett Refuge Preserve. Trees, water, sounds like a good time.

And in what’s becoming an Awesome Upland Road Trip tradition, we conclude again at Ravenwood Lodge near Topeka, Kansas. Ken and Bev Corbet run a beautiful place, full of history and incredible habitat. It’s like a tailor-made hunting amusement park, with a little of everything plus sporting clays! Want a preview? Go here and see some snaps and a report from last year.

Watch for the rig, give a honk or stop by and say hello! And safe travels on your own Awesome Upland Road Trip. Let the dog ride up front.

[Thanks to road trip sponsors National Shooting Sports Foundation and www.wingshootingusa.org, TriTronics, Irish Setter and Black's Wing & Clay Waterfowl.] Speaking of which, leave a comment and you might win a pair of Irish Setter boots and hunting jacket!

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