TALES OF SHARPTAIL, SPRUCE AND RUFFED GROUSE

By mid October grain fatten waterfowl is at last ready for shooting and eating.  Until then, the prairie and forrest grouse are  an exciting substitute. There is nothing more thrilling than chancing upon a sharptail covert and flushing a covey and hearing the "at-ata" cackle during takeoff.  The meat is superb and on par with the blue and ruffed grouse.

Shooting on the Prairies goes deep in my upper Midwestern bloodline.  I am more convinced of epi-genetics. I decided to invite a colleague who enjoys fine guns and has hunted extensively in the Nebraska river bottoms.  Alan is game for anything remotely having to do with traditional hunting from Stalking bears to waterfowling with duck tollers and upland on the plains. In one afternoon we hit four coveys, thanks to the dogs and picked a single from each covert. I was running the dogs with a LePage and his was a Lenard Birmingham prewar side lever box lock

Fe, the 13 year German scented upwind to our left and began an ascent upa coulee about a hundred yards away.  She pointed at a buck brush and immediately a covey of sharptails exploed down wind and over the hills. From the right a dark object sailed low to the ground.  It was a Golden Eagle who was stoopping at the grouse. We cross the barbed wire fence and kept the lab at heel.  As I crossed the crest of the ridge, Fe had pointed another buck brush and the Golden was settled on the ground fifty yards off to the upperside of the coulee.  The bird was using the dogs much like I did with my dogs in the falconer day. Tess flushed the double, I had one down and the eagle was in pursuit of the other.  I watch as it stooped and landed upon the grouse. By then the lab brought the grouse to hand and Ellen and I began to reutn to the Jeep when Tess got birds and a single blew up at our feet. Another quick shot and I was limited outus flying a Harris. but there was a vistor and a double a