We hunted eastern Montana this fall in late october for sharptail grouse. What a hoot!
We were around Miles City, east of Billings. We had antelope doe tags and hunted pd's too. The old and weak were in a camper, my nephew and I tented all but two nights.
Montana has a great access program. We found three adjoining ranches and were able to sign into all of them. One ranch was owned by a family that was trying hard to keep the grouse no's up and bring back the pheasant no's in that area (about 70 miles se. of Miles City.) Left crops and cover in place for em. planted some just for the birds.
We stopped and met them and we ended up camping on the ranch for three nights, had dinner and cribbage with the couple and their kids - great folks!
The three ranches had hosted a western regional horseback gsp field trial a couple weeks before. The birds were a little wild the first day, alot of them busting 50 yds out or so. I hunted with my setter, and we had an untrained wirehair with us. He was pretty well useless, but he got some exposure to birds so he had some fun too. We were in birds the whole time. Whether you were hunting with a dog or not if you could hit em limits were just a matter of time, and not very long.
The larger coveys seemed to flush wilder than than the single and doubles - more eyes on the lookout I guess. I shot three limits in three days, never out over two hours. Last day Ben pointed and held 5 single/doubles, and I got my 4 birds out of those flushes. Not that I'm that great a wing shot, just lots of birds and not the hardest to hit. I'd love to have that ratio with chukars!
I forgot to mention, the dogs got into a porcupine. The setter found it and held on point. The brainless wirehair charged over and in, then Ben broke, wirehair went in a second time. We spent that evening at the local vet's office. Dogs were both back at it the next morning.
They're pretty big birds (bigger than the ruffeds we see here), but not much for eating. Little tough.
Anyway, here's a few pics. The guy on the left in the third pic is the rancher we stayed with. The setter is my boy Ben. In the pic of the four of us I'm kneeling with Ben, two guys to my right are my older brother and his son, guy on my left is a hunting buddy from here in Oregon.
