Bird Hunting: Opening Day...

...As mentioned yesterday our opening day tradition is to hunt our "secret spot" for blue grouse and Huns up high in the No Name Mountains. Instead, for reasons still not entirely clear, we headed to another Nameless Range and...Uncovered a veritable spruce grouse bonanza. Annie hunted good, pointed a bunch and...Well given we ARE talking the most foolish of fool hens, a point does not necessarily result in a flush, at least not the sort I care to shoot at...So we flushed a bunch and finally got a couple to fly off in somewhat true grouse fashion, i.e. NOT flutter to the nearest limb and...Well while I would not care to make a habit of gunning down the most foolish of fool hens...It twas fun, especially watching Annie in action. Best thing though even ol' blind-as-a-bat Kate managed to get in on the action despite being on lead the entire time...For us the high point of the operation, by the way...Our hope all along has been as long as she is able to get around to get her nose full a bird scent as often as possible...Come to think on it can't hardly beat "most foolish fool hens" in that regard...Go get 'em Katie girl...

Grouse goodies, such as these currant berries, were everywhere...

...and so were the spruce grouse, aka Franklin's grouse, aka fool hen...Albeit many were youngsters we did manage to flight a couple mature birds...

...such as this pair...The main ingredient to what should be a fine game dinner some evening soon...A little red wine, perhaps candlelight...OK maybe we'll skip the candles this time around but you do get my drift...Of course you do...

Hunting: Sage Hens and Blue Grouse

Bird season opened September 1. Sticking to our Montana opening day tradition we headed to the hills in search of blue grouse. Since our best spot has been overrun with cows of late we decided to hunt a different spot. With the forecast for highs in the upper 60s we knew the hunt would be a short one even though the spot we picked was heavily timbered and would offer somewhat cooler temps at least until around noon when the sun topped the surrounding ridges.

In all our travels around Montana I don't think we've ever hunted a place so loaded with grouse groceries...wild strawberry, red raspberries (for us a first in Montana), several red berries and lots of forbs, clover and other lush greeneries seemed to scream grouse but...The dogs found just one, a lone spruce (Franklin's) grouse to boot.

Getting spruce grouse to flush is usually the hardest part but this time around the shooting proved even more difficult...laughable actually if it weren't so damn pathetic. Anyway after Annie pointed it twice and I missed it three times finally connected on numero 4 and, well, what can I say. Sort of deja vue all over again. After the way I ended last season perhaps a few practice sessions, eh?

But then we've found ziltch since--no blues, no more spruce, no sage hens--so, hell, why bother...