When I was here so many years ago with Brad McCardle we shot a few Sharptails and Huns and had such a great time, but today was truly my 1st limit of Sharptail Grouse. What a great ending to an already memorable day full of a wide variety of dogs, birds and conditions. Sharptail Grouse are an interesting game bird. They can be hard to find in the oceans of untouched prairie, but I do not find them to be a challenge to shoot once you do find them. They get up like slow popping popcorn one or two kernels at a time and they do not get up to top speed very quickly like a pheasant, partridge or quail. That being said I did miss a couple wild flushes today while being mesmerized by my young pups running big and chasing every grasshopper and meadow lark that they could find.
Today I ran German Shorthairs, English Pointers, English Setters, a Red Setter and a Pudelpointer. We had some good dog work, some bad dog work and gained a ton of valuable experience for everybody on wild birds. In addition to all the Sharptails we moved 3 covey's of Huns throughout the day with 3 different groups of dogs. The Huns eluded us, just being outside the range of my side by side 20 gauge shotgun each time. Better luck tomorrow!!!
- Ryan Fortier
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