Upland/dove openers

F

Flybum

New member
How’d everyone do?

My oldest daughter got her hunters ed finished a few weeks ago so my wife, daughter and I headed to the Sandhills of Nebraska for sharptails, chickens, and dove. We only were able to spare a day and a half this past weekend and hunted hard behind my two Llewellin setters. We were able to find two covies of sharptails. One held, one didn’t. We ended the trip with one beautiful bird and some pretty neat experiences(an awesome lightening show, a couple box turtle encounters, a couple ducks that needed some help). bird numbers seemed way down from last year. Food sources wereplentiful and every where along with rain and residual moisture, so I’m hoping they are just spread out more than usual right now.

Either way the dogs and I will be heading for sage grouse tomorrow after work.
 
Montana sharptail and blues.


bird_a.jpg


bird_f.jpg



bird_m.jpg



 
Very nice jet man!

Any luck lefty?

Our sage grouse opener started out pretty good. We hunted a couple new areas first thing in the morning and hardly found sign. Then we hunted a covey we found last year. We found them again and took two sage grouse over my two dogs. We then hunted a new area and found another covey. I was able to take my second bird. We followed up that covey but they snuck out on us.

Day two had us hunting with a new guy we had met and trying to get my buddy his second bird. The area we were hunting was only open for two days and had a limit of two and possession limit of two. We head to where we think they will be and the dogs get birdy. My older dog D and mollie (pat the new guys dog) started working into the wind. My two year old Emma swings down wind and nails the bird with one of her prettiest poinst. Pat walks in and I sit back and enjoy the show. One bird goes up and pat takes him. We were surprised to not see a covey get up.

We hunted hard the rest of the morning and evening put pats pup Blue down, but it didn’t matter. There was no trace of those birds anywhere. We quit at 1pm and headed toward home. We stopped at one more spot to check for sage grouse and blues. Found neither and drove home.

We made plans to play hooky and head to the high country for ptarmigan on Tuesday.
 
The field was pretty good but my shooting suffered. It was dusty so I didnt hunt my O/U, instead I used my auto. I shoot my O/U better. It was fun nonetheless!
 
Back
Top