CO_Weimar
New member
Headed up to Great Falls late last week.
The weather was perfect highs in the 40s with 10 MPH wind most days. If you have been to Montana this time of year, you know that the temp/wind combo is usually 10 degrees and 40 MPH wind. :laugh:
I will spare you the long details, but we bagged about 5 birds - 4 phez and a Hun. We were a bit late in the season but saw good numbers of birds ... plenty of hens. Roosters were flushing way out of range, our two dogs didn't have much opportunity to do much pointing on roosters.
The last day we hunted private land near Lewiston, MT - in 4 hours we saw 20+ birds, with 15 or so being roosters. My buddy claimed to have seen one giant rooster, and hesitated to shoot because he thought it was a turkey. We jokingly called it Phezilla! :laugh: The birds flushed so far out in this spot that there was absolutely no chance of hitting anything, without full chokes and goose loads.
Hunting Montana seems a bit different than hunting CO. Properties can go on for miles ... everything is big. The areas where we hunted were often along river bottoms ... lots of thick cover, cattails, willows and frozen/semi frozen marsh areas. In CO we typically look for CRP next to food, but many of the areas that we hunted were not adjacent to any obvious food sources. We hunted 2 properties on 2 different days, all day - we did not see any other hunters the entire time.
It was a great trip - great to get the dogs into areas with different cover and good numbers of birds. I will likely head back next year, but a bit earlier in the season - before November.
:cheers:
The weather was perfect highs in the 40s with 10 MPH wind most days. If you have been to Montana this time of year, you know that the temp/wind combo is usually 10 degrees and 40 MPH wind. :laugh:
I will spare you the long details, but we bagged about 5 birds - 4 phez and a Hun. We were a bit late in the season but saw good numbers of birds ... plenty of hens. Roosters were flushing way out of range, our two dogs didn't have much opportunity to do much pointing on roosters.
The last day we hunted private land near Lewiston, MT - in 4 hours we saw 20+ birds, with 15 or so being roosters. My buddy claimed to have seen one giant rooster, and hesitated to shoot because he thought it was a turkey. We jokingly called it Phezilla! :laugh: The birds flushed so far out in this spot that there was absolutely no chance of hitting anything, without full chokes and goose loads.
Hunting Montana seems a bit different than hunting CO. Properties can go on for miles ... everything is big. The areas where we hunted were often along river bottoms ... lots of thick cover, cattails, willows and frozen/semi frozen marsh areas. In CO we typically look for CRP next to food, but many of the areas that we hunted were not adjacent to any obvious food sources. We hunted 2 properties on 2 different days, all day - we did not see any other hunters the entire time.
It was a great trip - great to get the dogs into areas with different cover and good numbers of birds. I will likely head back next year, but a bit earlier in the season - before November.
:cheers: