Hobie1026
Active member
Short version - A Prairie Chicken and a Sharptail Grouse in the bag on the same day. First time in my life I was able to bag both native species of prairie grouse on the same day. Taken in different fields, about 2 hours apart.
Long Version - I had an afternoon off and decided to hunt one of the WIAs nearby. Took my older dog as I planned on hunting grass, no marshes or sloughs. I drove to a WIA I found on the map not far from the house. I only had 3 hours to hunt, not enough time to head to my usual spots. The cover looked overgrazed and patchy, but I could see features out in the distance that looked like they could be good cover.
From the road where I parked I walked down the hill to follow a cow path that ran beside a stream. It didn't look good; range burnt grass, nothing taller than 2 inches stuck up out of the ground. We were about 50 yards down the path when a bird flushed out of some small brush next to the stream. I drew on it but didn't pull the trigger immediately. The bird had angled uphill to the right, which put it right in front of my dog's head. As soon as it looked safe I pulled the trigger and dropped the bird. I was surprised to see grouse instead of a pheasant, and even more surprised when my dog delivered a Prairie Chicken instead of the more common Sharptail. The horizontal bars on the breast said Prairie Chicken though, and I was happily surprised to see one.
That was the only bird I found in that WIA, which was essentially an overgrazed pasture. Not the place to find roosters and first and foremost I'm a pheasant hunter. I headed north another couple miles to another WIA I had been wanting to check out. It was mostly harvested corn, but there was a stock pond towards the back that was surrounded by a narrow band of heavy cover. Perfect for an aging Springer on a quick hunt. I followed a path over the blowing cornstalk, keeping my dog at heel so he wouldn't bust any birds before we got to the actual cover.
We were still 20 feet from the where the cover started when a covey of 3 Sharptails flushed out of the grass. I took aim at the last one in the formation at dropped the bird into the brush on the far side of the pond. My dog had seen the bird fall and was heading for the grass where I had seen the bird go in. A few seconds later he re-appeared with the bird in his mouth and brought it to my hand. A pretty little Sharptail grouse. The other two grouse hit the turbos and were still flying for the next county, so we hiked out of the field and called it a day.
