Scott Linden Outdoors

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.

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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.

Buddy’s biggest challenge is steadiness to wing, shot and fall, and he had plenty of practice on pheasants. Many skulked and skittered through the dry creekbeds, unseen but smelt by the wirehair. We were asleep at the switch on several well-telegraphed finds and out of gun range. Hen pheasants were flown after solid points, and the Buddy held or just moved a bit to see the flight. Blue ribbon performance if you ask this owner! 

[Get a sneak preview of the beautiful Mission Creek Lodge at Ravenwood, one of our other stops on the Awesome Upland Road Trip, here]

The day ended up being an ideal deer hunt too … had we been carrying bow or rifle. We jumped bunches of does of both whitetail and mule deer persuasion, and a number of bachelor herds of each. A long stalk by Buddy culminated in a flushed whitetail so fat it jiggled when it ran off. Eight, nine points at least.

Jake’s suggestion of a last hunt toward a field corner where cover petered out to plowed field was acceded to because it was enroute to camp. And sure enough, Buddy’s ¼ mile track culminated in a solid point and a glimpse of bird squirting out behind him. I almost relocated him but the point remained staunch so I cautiously approached. A hen moved, and I put my gun down. That’s when the rooster materialized behind her, and they both launched with enough of a clatter to spook that other rooster that had snuck behind the dog. 

Jake swung left. I shouldered the gun and swung right, dropping a leg on the rooster, which sailed pretty much back to where we’d started this stalk. It hit, head high, and I marked while sending Buddy for the rodeo-to-come.

By the time we sauntered up, Buddy had exhausted the potential in likely cover and looked to me for direction. I released him to hunt and sure enough, a solid point was barely visible in the sage above the creek bottom we’d been scouring. 

Jake approached and the wing-clipped bird flew my way. Sparks flew from the muzzle in the waning light, and a pretty decent retrieve ended our day on the Montana High Line.