Pheasant Opener in Montana

Today was an excercise in patience and understanding. 

The reason being that the birds were  … not flushing in groups but instead were being found one or two, sometimes 3 at a time.  To shoot 3 pheasants today you had to work and be deadly accurate with your shotgun with proper far reaching loads.

Why, after seeing good numbers for the last month or so did it happen like that?  I’m not a pheasant expert but I surmise it to be multi-factorial.

For one thing, this has been a record warm September heading into October.  Here it is mid-October and we are just now having average temps you would expect in September.  I do know that cold weather tends to congregate pheasants, something we didn’t see.

Because we haven’t had any really cold nights, much of the cover is as it was in late August minus some harvested crops.  Another issue is that there is still hundreds of acres of corn still standing.  Most of the corn is harvested by this time which pushes the pheasants to edges.

It puzzled me today after seeing many pheasants earlier what happened.  This morning we heard cocks cackle from many directions yet hunting them was nearly like pulling teeth.  The dog work was fine.  Birds behaved like you would expect with cocks running and hens setting for a tight pointed flush.

Alternative birds such as the sharptail grouse was not easy either.  The sharptails are especially spooky this time of year in public places.  Only unhunted private lands hold sharptails that will sit reasonably.  A lesson to ask for permission in unknown areas!

All in all folks had a good time but didn’t have a lot of success.  Who knows, it could snow without warning, kill cover and push birds together for a ‘dream’ hunt the next day!  Guess that’s why its called hunting. 

All of those who came up and picked up their dog to hunt Block Management were very grateful for the kind hospitality eastern Montanan’s showed them.  Like one hunter said to me today, “an unproductive day afield is better than a day in the office.”

I agree!

Give your Brittany a treat for me and happy hunting!

Dave