EASTERN MONTANA PHEASANT OPENER

I WAS CAMPED....

outside a 3 star upscale oil-patch hotel built during  the recent BAKKEN boom. Although, those days are temporarily gone,  my hunting companions had suites with kitchenette. The comfortable lodging was quiet until the hunters from Pennsylvania arrived... More on that later.
Beside our hunt master another couple to added to the hunt party's stratosphere.

The two hammer gun guys who shot a WC Scott Premier and a James Woodward

Another Alpha male, he loved hunting birds and is afflicted with the need for fine weaponry like a tidy Woodward Hammergun. He was an Agriculturist and later each day he always had two or three birds tails protruding from his vest. His love for all thing Teutonic especially short hairs with names out Hansel and Gretel often forced me to think why I did not hunt with my Linders' What I really liked though was his immediate field dressing.

Pheasant ala picatta served over angel hair pasta

His wife is an artist with a passion for the sublime and could inhabit a world few of us scientists and engineer types can phantom. She seemed to peer sometimes into those multi-universes that only those living in the present can achieve. Their enthusiasms combined well to make the hunting party rival anything I had experienced on the Scottish grouse moors.

Opening morning  and I was unprepared to the long drive to the shooting fields as I usually camp within a few miles of our hunting grounds. The price of gas was astounding compare to my Nevada/California petro station.  We drove through several small towns that were clones of those in Saskatchewan. I felt at home. I understood people in these town maybe from the tales my mother would speak of about her South Dakota youth. He tales were always about the character that lived there. They came to life whenever I visited  a Prairie town.

Ahead the black suburban taillights stayed on. We were in the middle of nothing and I was comforted by my Labs moaning. She knew what was coming.  The hunt master got out of the cartel suburban and told us the nearby Russian Olive bush  usually held birds. He was right. 

The Swede and the Irishman both with English pre1900 doubles

Unprepared again, I walked to the bush and without a loaded gun. I sent the lab and a covey of partridge flushed, a single sharptail followed and finally two cock pheasants. It was a Moses bush and I had disobeyed the  1st commandment, "to always carry a loaded gun." I would get another crack at them later that week.

The Agriculturist and the Artist

My lab,Tess, came to heel looked up at me and almost pissed on Meindl boot.  We loaded and drove to the next coulee where I watched a dozen pheasants run from the wheat stubble into the grass. These birds were totally wild and had their Ph.D.'s from bird hunters.  And so we started the chase up the erosion patch with several Russian olives and native prairie grasses. I took the outside and kept the lab within 20 yards while the shorthair moved ahead. I could see birds running ahead about 200 yard and the cocks wildly flushed  ahead. While the  shorthair worked ahead I let the lab loose and she immediately flushed a cock a perfect right to left.  I was awed by the powerful wing beats and a tail that flopped and waved at me as the pheasant caught the breeze. I was caught with my head up bird watching, again. The gorgeous bull cock flew to its freedom. And then the lab spun around scented another trail. As I turned around she flushed another cock.  This time the hammer went down and Lab had feathers in her mouth and gingerly brought dinner to hand

The 1876 W&C Scott and Son Premiere Grade Dolphin head hammergun

ON THE FIRST DAY, GOD CREATED HUNTING DOGS. ON THE SECOND DAY HE MADE MONTANA

How my hunting grounds came to be

The Inland sea that made the Prairies

Beneath the short grass Prairies hills and coulees that I have walked and hunted for over 55 years,  were several thousand meters of layered alluvial sediment formed by inland sea that is rich in acrbon fuel known as "THE BAKKEN." This ancient formation often called the Western Interior Seaway formed 75 million years ago. Today it is a peaceful short grass praire that supports cattle, winter wheat and deep oil wells when the price is right. It is also where we hunt with dogs, campers, fine smooth bores and and great nimrods. 

The Dually 7.3 litre Diesel, Lance camper with slide and the Grand Cherokee

How blessed I've been to retire young and for the last 30 years able to manage my board of directors and tech companies from afar we yanked the three children from elementary to home school six weeks in the fall and 3 months in spring. Usually this annual camping Safari started in the Red Deer Valley Alberta, moved east to Saskatchewan ending up near the Cumberland House before descending to  North Dakota and Montana .

The children are past the age of homeschooling but the prairies are embedded in their blood. The prairie magic that camping, hunting and renewing friendships in small towns give us  enough joy to last until our return next year. 

Boone the Wirehair ..One of the most curious dogs I've hunted with

Time was in short supply this year so I decided the Montana pheasant opener would challenge my lab in prep for the partridge and later ruffed grouse Besides this would be a perfect way to open the travel season which usually ends up somewhere in the back country of Arizona or the Beaches of Mexico .  

F.C. Tess the superdog

The Hunting party

I was invited by a friend and his wife to join them for their annual Montana pheasant hunt that they had been committed to for over 15 years. Many years ago, I had the pleasure to introduced this man, a gentle Swede to Saskatchewan. His was a true sportsman and traveled the world with his high school sweetheart. They are well rounded and always filled with tales.  He and his fun loving college buddies hunted together since his ruckus filled college days as an civil engineering student at the great Iowa State in Ames. These days he focuses on dogs, engineered hand made doubles smooth bore and vintage wines. His wife, a math teacher brainiac, is a great facilitator and logistics support who enables their travels.  My wife and I felt at ease with their analytically grounded behavior, being well- read and well traveled couple of Midwestern heritage combined, He enthusiam for with fine pre-war English and continental hammer and hammerless guns and a great collection and knowledge of American double guns, jilted my jaded blood to accept and hunt in the lower 48 once again. Of course, the chance to try good wines , watch dogs work and shoot handmade smooth bores  and enough sense not to speak of American politics had a lot to try eastern Montana again. My wife was to join us. With me out of the house for six weeks she decided to choose a carpet and install over 400 yards. She regretted not hunting but upon my return I was delighted not going through the turmoil

My 20 bore back action Greener hammergun

   

AS I GET OLDER IT IS MORE ABOUT THE FRIENDS

Southwest Montana and in particular is special place for the summer. 
 
True, Montana has become Tony but one must slide between the poser and the layers of wanting to be there to find the special gift only the humble can sense. The Salmon Fly Hatch has become a mythical part of the allure that bring fly fisher to the Madison River. The hatch is something to behold with these big bugs hovering over the water swarming the willows  and then they go away but the trout are looking up. And that bug brings the fish and the fisher from all over the world to the Madison.

The Homeless Joe"s from California and Oregon staying at eh Animal House

I decided to set up a visiting camp this year to treat a few friends to Montana before it disappears.

The three amigos enjoyed the camping but realized they must pay their tribute to the Madison and extreme pocket water fishing. Then came the "Dean" of the Madison River, Don Prentiss of Tucson who still thought of the Madison as the only river. He ate food like there was not tomorrow not bad for an 86 year old solitary fisher

Fishing friends for over 40 years on the Madison. Patrick Maxon Don Prentiss(86) Ken McCubbin and Pat

 

The Tomatoes are ready and so are the Birds

Tess in pool training for the duck season

An other banner year for our victory garden and the tomatoes Gods were good to us again. I

A harvest of tomatoes

think we are on your 3rd side of bacon for our BLT's. We closed the pool for the winter to concentrate on packing provision for our Montana and Canada fall campaign. With the new Lance camper, a 1161,  stocked and ready for bear then hauling a Grand Cherokee behind the 7.3 Ford workhorse.  The Jeep is loaded with boat motors for Canadian fishing and duck hunting. The precise task to pack for 6 weeks of camping in the Canadian bush returning in November is complicated.

Fishing requires streamer rods and
long undies. Upland hunting demand excellent footwear and so I have two pairs of Miendl's. One must be mobile to find the concentrations that shift each year, well trained dogs, good companionship and the right type of smooth bores as life is short so why hunt with ugly guns. This year I will focus on trying my 1886 28 bore rebounding hammers Birmingham made as a true smooth bore rather than a converted cape gun.  The beauty was restocked with Turkish/Circassian Walnut (Juglans Regia) by the Dennis Smith, d.b.a., the Stock Doctor with a slight cast on to a leather pad. Checkering was 26 lines per inch.  Keith Kearcher did the barrel work with his proprietary browning. The Tisdall is choked 1/4 and 1/2 with little pitting and good bore thickness.  Also included on the journey are several other hammer guns and a tidy Holland and Holland 1892 made by W&C Scott and Sons. For geese of course it is the Omar Bradley Winchester Model 21 Duck grade with fluer de lys checkering with 30 inch tube bore out by incomparable Stan Baker R.I.P.

28 bore

1867 Scottish Jones under-leaver, 28 bore Tisdall,, W.C. Scott Premier, Holland and Holland 12 bore

I had a friend load up some black powder 12's for the upland and waterfowl hunt. And so my goal is to get a double with smoke throughout the field of vision. And so I wait till my son returns to the Madison trout stream from his motorhoming up to Helena and Great Fall when we will attack the brown trout as they prepare to run from Quake and Hebgen Lakes.

SPRING TIME IN THE SIERRA'S TIME FOR SAGE GROUSE COUNTS AND FISHING

There is nothing quit as wonderful as springtime in the mountains. Each day as the trees green-up, the skiing almost over and the high pressure lifts warm Pacific air current over Blue Canyon, is when the Great Basin Desert wakes up from a winters rest.  Sage grouse males find their historical leks and display themselves to pass on their DNA. Females wait at the fringes to see which dance pleases her the most and in a moment she is fertilized. Against all odds with raven, coyotes, late freezes, low water, she will spend the next 8 months alone with her brood.  These birds are highly adapted to the vegetation, winter cycles and drought that before the introduction of European agriculture they had leks at most natural seeps and springs. Now they are decline probably due to West Nile Virus resricting the gene pool and water psring tapped for unuglated like cattle and feral horses

In Nevada they are declining fast.  Nevada is a very fragile ecosystem in the rain shadows if the Sierras and competition for water is fierce

THE QUAIL AND DOVES WERE BOUNTIFUL

With our aging hunting dog, Fe the bearded female GWP  and the exuberant retriever, Tess the black lab and having sent out the Christmas letter with no more nester living at home, we were off to the Sonora desert for our Christmas  camping and shooting party.  An evening visit with my falcon mentor Harry McElroy and Beth, in Kingman AZ,  filled the temperamental refrig with Christmas treats, chicken, various cheese and tortilla and watered up in Wikieup. That night we found an arroyo to camp nearby the shooting fields and set up base camp. We finally felt the warmth of the sun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnB7RI5oSxo.


Ellen dug a hole for her dutch oven cooking, immediately set out on her walks through the Sonoran garden while I loaded the Jeep in tow and began to scout for dove flights.

I would not to be disappointed this year.  Alongside a vacant field I noticed a covey about fifty Gambels.  Tess moaned when she spotted the group but I wasn't going to road hunt. Before long a single doves lite into the mesquite roost and within ten minutes thousand of late season morning doves followed.  I was content and decided no to distrub the flights.
My weapon for next day was an AYA 20 ga model 53.

I love this gun choked IC and IM. The first shoot was looking westward against the setting sun making for quick reflex shot the norm. By sunset I had enough and so had the dogs. I popped a Mexican lager, cased the Eibar handmade 20 bore, watered the dogs, field dressed the game for dinner and life was good while listening to Loreena McKennitt heading back to camp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxTpvA-pUG0.



It was almost sunset and Ellen had a great feast prepared of pheasant, wild rice ala Saskatchewan mushroom soup and sleep came quickly after a few songs.  With our new phone apps and a clear sky Ellen quickly located Venus and Jupiter which shown a distinct red. The sun went down and the coyotes harmonized.

For the nest several days we celebrate Christmas exchanging gift hunting birds watching the dogs work, cooking great dinners and pairing with the wines

TERRIFIC EARLY WINTER FISHING ON THE MADISON RIVER

November 2013

 The Weather Held

Seldom is November weather in southwestern Montana stable enough to warrant a stopover at our place on the Madison Rive...thank God for carbon and "global warming." After a wonderful visit to my long time double gun guru and his engaging wife from his grade school days and tasting their varied selections of red wines paired with grain feed Prairie wild goose aka Normano, I was off to trout fish and chase blue grouse in the Gravelly Range.

  A day of snowmobiling up to the Snow Crest area of the Gravelly produced  good numbers of grouse that were actually working their way up mountain as the inversion set in. The young lab Tess  handled riding the snow mobiles well whereas the old German wirehair being true to her gene pool did not adapt to the newness of this hunting style.
The game was moving down the mountain to find winter range and seemed not to have a care about the long months ahead
 

The weather was stable, besides I had shot enough birds in the last six weeks to last a lifetime so trout fishing would do and was I in for a nice surprise. I parked the rigs on Terra Firma plugged in the AC slept the first night like a baby in the pure mountain air only southwest Montana owns.

I was to focus on winter's streamers that is until I reached the Colonel Pool and watched as heads repeatably come up from the 45 degree water.  The sky was loaded with Baetis and midge hatching and best of all not a soul to be seen.  Once in a while a rifle crack by elk hunter up in the Maison range broke the serenity.  The quiet was so complete I could focus on the water, bugs and knot tying some of my favorite things to do. My first cast was a a strong rainbow over 16 inches that was pissed he had been tricked.  This was happening again and again  all rainbows but were were the browns.

The browns were there but not in the pools. They were hidden alongside the main current below the boulder that created hydro vacuums. I reached down to their lair with a streamer and time after time these European trout struck hard. The days got better and better even the dogs enjoyed the action from shore.  I was ready to spend the winter days here until the next front flew up the Targhee until my wife suggest it's best to travel on dry roads hauling the Jeep.  She was right and I would head down to Ely visit my rancher friends who had encouraged me to hunt their lands for ELK in December.

THE PRAIRES POTHOLES WERE FILLED WITH WITH WATERFOWL

Oct 20,2013

It’s early winter as we pass the grain elevators, heading East thru Quill Lake.  The freight cars are  filled from this year’s bumper wheat and field pea crop being shipped to China and the Mid East.  Quill Lake is the epicenter of staging for North American waterfowl.  The Pacific, Central and Mississippi flyways intermingle in this vast basin lake, easily spotted from satellite. 

This year, the juvenile Arctic Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens ), increased yet again…the diminishing ice sheets provides for nesting and feed.  Before the 1960's, the population was kept in check by nest predation by local Inuits for protein and a booming demand for down and poor wintering sanctuary .  The bird population explosion began in the early 1980’s is a man-made phenomenon.  Climate change, man-made refuges, and Nixon’s embargo of the wheat crop opened up fence-row to fence-row farming in the Canadian prairies.  The result: snow geese and arctic geese populations are booming, so much so that Quill Lake locals in their 70’s remember when it was rare to see a snow goose 40 years ago. compared to the millions of birds today in the fields eating the grain stubble in fall 2013.  

 

The Quills are part of the prairie pothole area that extends from central Alberta down through the Dakotas in a mecca for the died-in-the-wool waterfowl hunter.  The ducks also have been impacted by man-made changes.  When the Canadian prairies were planted in spring wheat and canola to feed the world population, farmers drained many of the prairie potholes essential for duck reproduction.  Farmers also tilled the grasslands that were the nesting sites, and the duck populations began to decline.  Hunters began to support DU Canada to acquire nesting-site easements on sensitive lands around remaining potholes.  Due to the few remaining potholes, the duck populations were more concentrated.  In years past, weather was less important.  Massive amounts of rain/snow in winters of 2011 and 2012 filled all remaining potholes, resulting in duck populations approaching the 1950’s.  But that situation could change from year to year with the weather.  Thus the fluctuation in duck populations year to year is wholly dependent upon spring runoff amounts.

This year, I bring my Fleur-de-lys grade B carving Winchester Duck model 21 vintage 1947 with 30-inch tubes.

When Canada went to non-toxic steel shot, the barrel master Stan Baker of Seattle reconfigured the tube constrictions to handle non-lead shot.  It is one of the finest shooting guns I own.  I had the Stock Doctor put a leather pad on and it has become the deadliest of my water fowling pieces.

I bring a cased 1874 I. Hollis pigeon-weight, high profile hammergun with Damascus tubes, case colored timber refurbished by Doug Turnbull and David Yale respectively.  There is a period Silver's pad and Keith Kercher redi did the Damascus in stunning black and white.  My eldest son and I acquired this gun in ChristChurch on our trip to New Zealand several years ago.  Its drop and length of pull (LOP) combine to make this a deadly upland gun for the grouse and later in the trip, Dakota pheasants. 

Cased also is my Model 53 french-grade Side Lock Ejector 20-bore, made in 1967.  It is a perfect weapon for fast-flushing Huns and grouse over my hunting dogs. 

And lastlya Browning Schnabel fore end English-stocked Citori 28 gauge.  Ellen, my wife of 34 years, presented me with it on my 40^th birthday.  

Last but not least, there is the Paris made Faure LePage y Fils 12 bore with 27.5 in tubes.  A French best side lock ejectors with gold washed locks hidden bite articulate triggers and  barrels inscribe inoxyable Jacbob Holtzer.

The Hunt

 

We go from the extreme southwestern Saskatchewan all the way northeast to the Cumberland House and Hudson Bay.  We camp, hunt both upland and waterfowl and the dogs around the campfire are in cannine heaven.  In over 7 weeks this 2013 we put on 4,900 miles.

 I had to lie.  A prairie lie.  I was rushing Ellen to the airport for her trip back to Reno.  I stopped for a quick Tim Horton.  A large man appeared from my left as I stopped the truck.  At first, I thought it was a large Hutterite, as he was dressed in all black.  He was tall and Teutonic.   As he approached closer, I saw the royal emblem stitched on his bullet-proof vest, with a sidearm sticking out of his waste jacket.  After 23 years of hunting the prairies, I was being ambushed by a game warden in a parking lot.  ‘How’s the hunting’, he said.  I lied as I sent Ellen into Tim Horton to get doughnuts.  She wanted nothing to do with the encounter.  I quipped ‘Haven’t been hunting yet.’  He was taken aback by my answer, looking at the mud on my vehicles, the decoys on top.  The Grand Cherokee I was towing was filled with hunting equipment.  I couldn’t give him probable cause to begin the process of checking the coolers,guns,licenses etc and still get Ellen to the airport on time, and so I lied.  I resented being ambushed, and I told him I was in a serious rush to the John Diefenbaker airport.  There was a quixotic look about him when he quipped, "You'd better be goin," if you're going to make it.  I ran into the Tim Horton to retrieve Ellen she hadn't ordered.

2013 THE YEAR FOR DUCKS AND GEESE

October 24

Waterfowlers, bird watchers and prairies visitors seem to pass through the Quill Lakes in central Saskatchewan. Late October attracts up the dyed-in-the-wool duck hunters who see the northern flights of the green head. It draws the old school water fowlers who seek double and triple curls mallards, bull sprigs, a few teal, widgeons, shovelers, gadwall and divers.  All are in full breeding plumage ready to head south to impress the hens. They are about to enter the gunning gauntlet from North Dakota down to Texas and Louisiana.

The water is high and the coast marsh harbors thousand of ducks and reflects soft lights to create continual flight that inspire the wildlife artist and photographer. I found a incredible spotting scope on Ebay,  an old school Bausch and Lomb ED 80mm spotter. You sit at water edges and watch these hilarious birds enjoy other web footed company as hundred of thousand of waterfowl congregate.  Truly a melting pot of bird life. And here on the Quills the learn from the elders the ways to migrate. It is a huge party that happen each year.

When I meet up with fellow hunters who have been hunting with us for years, I notice we are all beginning to look like Hemingway with graying beards and seeking more thrills. I do not hunt with those that count numbers and brag about shots nor those who claim ownership of birds they supposed they shot. They are well motivated to rise early spend hours laying out the spread and then wait. Most days it over by 11:00 and let loose the labs to sweep for the outlier.  We do not group shoot and so each is responsible for   counting.  A rule of thumb is that we shoot gentleman's limits hoping that we find all the sailors that fly off to die. A return to camp filled with coffee, hot soup and then the task of cleaning.  Cleaning usually takes 2-3 hours.  Sometimes a nap is needed but by 3 we are scouting for fields or marsh and by 5 its time for huns looking for scratch.  Evenings are a quiet supper discussing layouts and tactic for the next day and by 8 lights out.on 

Patterns to the snow are disperse because of John Deere. Crop loss is almost gone and the outfitter have to travel further and tell stories  about the gold old days ten fifteen years ago.  You see Ag engineers made more efficient combines and seldom do you see swath full with ripe wheat, barley head easy pickens for the geese and ducks.  They love field pea because they shatter but in today's farming the waterfowl are left to feed on the waster and leftover And so they hop from field to field in search of the best pickings.  This fustrates the snow goose hunter who tries to anticipate the next morning flights. Little is left for the gess to swarm around and so the move quickly in search of grains to fatten.

Mostly Northern Greedheads and no Blues