First trip in the books

esetter

Active member
Just got home from My first trip to MT. We started on a piece of private the fist day. Got 1 rooster and 4 sharpies. We both missed a couple grouse and I had a miss on one of the easiest shots Ive been presented by a rooster ever! Had a safety still on shot (those don't throw lead , so Ill call that a miss). Pretty decent numbers there and west from our observation. Denton was getting hunted heavily but got one rooster on some state school trust land near there. Hunted on a BMA , mover 6 -7 pheasants and a covey of huns. Moved up to Circle / Jordan area. Scorched earth. ! bird in two days. All hayed / grazed and really dry. Ended up near the river on the eastern side of the state. Much better where irrigated fields met brush. Shot 4 there and shoulda had two more. Wasn't the best year to go , nor the best results. Good experience and I will go back one day!!
 
Just got home from My first trip to MT. We started on a piece of private the fist day. Got 1 rooster and 4 sharpies. We both missed a couple grouse and I had a miss on one of the easiest shots Ive been presented by a rooster ever! Had a safety still on shot (those don't throw lead , so Ill call that a miss). Pretty decent numbers there and west from our observation. Denton was getting hunted heavily but got one rooster on some state school trust land near there. Hunted on a BMA , mover 6 -7 pheasants and a covey of huns. Moved up to Circle / Jordan area. Scorched earth. ! bird in two days. All hayed / grazed and really dry. Ended up near the river on the eastern side of the state. Much better where irrigated fields met brush. Shot 4 there and shoulda had two more. Wasn't the best year to go , nor the best results. Good experience and I will go back one day!!
East is very dry, Lewistown, Roy, gets hit hard navy out of staters. Lots of pay hunting on private land. (Bs.).
 
I've been hunting Montana for about 25 years. It's not the kind of place where you generally find wide spread concentrations of birds. The birds are a few here, a couple there, and a handful over the ridge. It's a state that is highly dependent on good rainfall to create good pheasant hunting. While the irrigated crop area's along the major waterways are usually good, year after year, they are very limited in scope, and get hunted hard. Some of the best hunting is found in somewhat dry areas that don't have much in the way of irrigated croplands. Dry land wheat with area's of CRP are highly productive....WHEN THE RAIN FALL IS GOOD. When it's not--like this year--hunting can be tough. This year we found some area's that were obscure and off the beaten path. Never saw another pheasant hunter on opening day. We did OK...but not great. Saw more Sharptail's than Pheasants, but still got some roosters.

What happens is that over the years you learn the spots that hold pheasants and the spots that don't. Keep track of the productive area's and you will find that over time, you'll acquire quite a list of spots to hunt. They may be small and only take an hour or less to hunt. But they will hold birds. This is especially true for hunting after the opening week. The birds develop a routine. I know of one piece of public land that usually has a little grain. The birds will sit on a piece you can't hunt all day long--but then fly out to feed in the grain the last hour before dark as long as the weather is cold. Once you figure that out, it can be some really fast hunting with easy limits, a full month after the opening. But it takes time to find those spots. The good thing about Montana is that you usually don't see a lot of other hunters after the first week. So if you know a spot where you can find birds the 3rd week of the season, odds are you'll be able to return year after year and get a little bit of action in the same spot.

I have many memories of flushing and shooting roosters from the exact same brush pile on public land, later in the season, over the course of 20 years. Way back when it was with my Springer "Dutch". Then my Springer "Shadow". More recently it's been with my Lab "Annie". Since I lost her I haven't been back to that spot. But the memories remain and become sweeter with the years. It's what hunting should be all about.

In good years, you can just hit area's of CRP in prime rooster country and put up a decent number of birds. But you only get good years--when all the stars align--about 25 % of the time. The rest of the time is tougher. But if you want to make Montana a destination hunt every year, you'll find your spots and with time find some really good pheasant hunting. It's not like South Dakota in a normal year. But I've had really tough hunt's in SD because hunters were just everywhere. In SD you'll pull up to a WIA, and get your dog's ready as someone else is leaving. You hunt it for a couple hours, and get ready to leave when someone else pulls up waiting for you to go so they can start to hunt. It can be like that, just one big merry go round of pheasant hunters. All hoping to find a WIA that hasn't been hit for a couple days and will then have birds.

In Montana, the birds are much fewer, but so are the hunters. Even in a good year with decent pheasant numbers, wait a couple weeks after the opener and you can hunt an entire week and see few, if any bird hunters. You learn the spots and find a few birds. Most days you won't limit up. Some days you'll get skunked, but at times you'll have a limit in 20 minutes. Heck, I have in 5 minutes when I find the right spot, 3 weeks after the opening day. It's just a matter of spending the time to find the little honey holes.

Montana is a great spot for someone who wants to explore big wide open country. It has pheasant's, but not lot's of them unless it's a great year. Even then, only 20% of the state will have 90% of the pheasants. But if you like to hunt and have tons of room to roam by yourself with just you and your buddy, it can't be beat. Just keep your expectations moderate and you'll probably be satisfied.
 
What you just described is pretty much what we experienced. The size of some of the fields and and amount of places to hunt were quite overwhelming at times. Theres no doubt that we hit it in a bad year. I have experienced many first time hunts in a different state and theres always been a learning curve. I woulda liked to have gotten into more huns , but it was likely our lack of experience hunting the area and not lack of birds.
 
esetter,

Drought affects Huns probably even more than it does pheasants. Huns are a dry land bird, fond of cover--but not too heavy cover--and wheat stubble. With roosters they head for the heaviest stuff they can find when they get pressure. Huns rely on their eyes to keep then safe. So they want grass, but shorter and thinner than say a pheasant would and I've always found Huns with some kind of water source not too far away. Hun populations are also highly variable. I've had years when I could put up 300 Huns in a day, and then maybe only 30 the very next year. There was a string of years in the 90's where it was just one good year after the next and populations became amazing. You would find them in area's of sub optimal habitat. But since then, I've had to focus more on the core area's where I always find them. A good thing with Huns is that oft times you can find them on public land in both Montana and Wyoming.

If you're looking for Huns in Montana, you look for dry land grain stubble with near by cover, like a grass or even sage brush. Broken not too heavy cover, with a lot of "edges", and some near by water. Just a little bitty creek or pond will do. But some kind of water. In Wyoming, you look for area's of Sage near agriculture of some kind. Once again, hunt "edge" cover with some near by water source. Also, and this is really important, when you find them, mark the spot on a map. You can go back to that same area year after year and find Huns. Some years just a few, some years lots of them. But they know what they like and when you find them, that area will always be a Hun spot. Public land areas in Wyoming in the central part of the state are prime. The Sheridan, Cody, Lander regions would be your top 3 choices. The Casper area would be a 4th choice. I've seen them in Western Wyoming, but always in lesser numbers. Public land maps are essential, as public and private are intertwined and not always marked. I've used the On X mapping tools for smartphones and found them to be good too.
 
On X is an excellent tool. The only hun I ever killed was in Wyoming. I don't know when I will be back in Montana but am loosely planning a return trip to WY next season. Looking back , we saw some good hun cover that we didn't hit.
 
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