Heading out to eastern Montana next week and should be in the field a week from today. Taking my 16 ga. Citori and my Sweet Sixteen. I've got several boxes of 1 1/8 oz. of 7 1/2 shot that I plan to use because I have no other use for them. I figure a little denser pattern for the Huns and still effective on the Sharpies. I'll throw in a box of #6's just in case. Not sure the Sweet will get a lot of use since it's choked IC and might be a little too open. Plan to shoot the Full/Mod in the Citori and adjust if needed. I figure shots may be a little further than I'm use to when hunting pheasants in SD but I will be hunting over my Brittany and a friend's GSP's. Sound like a solid plan to those of you that have hunted out there before?
#5 & #6 was all we packed & improved chokes were chase n sage grouse Hun's & sharptails shots were closer then a average SD pheasant shots for us butt not many hunters were in our area...
#6 bout as small as id go but you probably a lot better shot then me with that 16GA. i had 12GA. sage grouse just eat up #6 shot flew off & died 150-200 yards away seen that 3+ times sharptails are weak I think a Hun'sa lil tuffer lol
I won't be hunting sage grouse and I've always favored smaller shot with a more dense pattern. I shoot 6's all season for pheasants here in SD, but might throw in a few 5's very late in the season.
Sage grouse was probably the coolest prairie type bird I've hunted look cool mounted season won't stay open forever be worth a day hunt for the next bird going on protected list like lesser prairie chicken...
I'm a steel #2 & #3 shot pheasant guy & #4 & #5 shot lead pheasant guy break bones & kill stuff vs wing & wound I not a big off season shooter lol
Good luck on your hunt... Give them sage grouse a chance very fun hunt
If you hear it a lot from lots of people, maybe there's some basis to it. Smothering game in lots of different sauces and tastes can hide all sorts of sins. It won't taste like a Sharptail tastes but you can eat it OK. If you smother a possum in BBQ sauce or teriyaki sauce you can eat that too but there's a difference between being able to eat something because you've hidden its inherent taste and enjoying it because it tastes good. Just try one before you kill a bunch and end up not liking them.I've herd that bad taste bs lots
Sage grouse yuck purple meat smell & taste like sage dogs don't even eat em lol
If you hear it a lot from lots of people, maybe there's some basis to it. Smothering game in lots of different sauces and tastes can hide all sorts of sins. It won't taste like a Sharptail tastes but you can eat it OK. If you smother a possum in BBQ sauce or teriyaki sauce you can eat that too but there's a difference between being able to eat something because you've hidden its inherent taste and enjoying it because it tastes good. Just try one before you kill a bunch and end up not liking them.
They are as dark a meat as a duck or goose
I've shot Sage Grouse in California that were as inedible as you describe. Just awful. Then a friend and I went to Idaho for Sharptails, got into Sage Grouse and shot one each. We cooked the big B-52 bomber my friend shot thinking that an old bird would be the best test of a different population of birds. Fried in olive oil and a little garlic and it was delicious with absolutely no bad taste. It was around grain however while the calif. birds weren't. The erratic taste is something you can't predict.
Sporty they're not. Slow flying, big birds unless you get one in a strong wind or going down slope. Then again anything is sporty in those circumstances.
Actually, my friend and I are the only ones we know who have had that experience. Like I said one bird was great out of enough of them being bad we didn't hunt them anymore. My friend was a Calif. DFG unit biologist who ate ANY game and whose unit contained some of the few Sage Grouse left in Calif. so we could have decimated them if they were delicious but we quit them quickly after trying a couple from our state. In Idaho where we were, the locals looked forward to the opening of Sage Grouse season like they looked forward to deer season and wanted to get all the law allowed to eat. It had to have something to do with their diet in a local area.You are the only person I've ever herd say sage grouse was edible...