Top on my bucket list is bagging a prairie chicken. Father time's creeping up on me, I'm 80. Am hoping for some suggestions. Have a Lab & Britt. Even consider a well recommended guide. Thanks for any imput / suggestions. Thanks George.
.There used to be a guy out of Tipton, KS who guided on them. Patterned their movements as described above, and pass shot them from coffin blinds. I hunt them by walking them up, and yes, it’s a low success rate venture. They usually flush wild.
I've killed a few somewhat north of Tipton, KS.
There was a ridge with a road that split the high point of the ridge. You could park on the north side, truck out of sight and get on the south side of the ridge. Chickens had a flight path along that ridge. They didn't come every day but if you sat that ridge for a week between about 4 -5, chickens would come by in strings maybe 3 days out of the week. If you were lucky and picked the right spot, you might get a shot or two. They always came from east to west.
Now...as to cooking Chickens...never had that much success. As my mentor at that time said "Put the chicken in an old rubber boot, baked at 350 for an hour, throw away the Chicken and eat the boot". I don't think he was that far off.
I've shot two in my life. Second one to confirm that I hadn't just messed up cooking the first one. We usually get a couple pointed every year here in KS. I'll not shoot another.
Tympanuchus cupido was once as iconic an American bird as the turkey is now. Legendary at the table, prairie chicken was one of the meals Mark Twain pined for when stuck on an extended trip to Europe. It’s been said that Twain based the character Jim from Huckleberry Finn on a waiter who was so impressed that Twain had ordered an entire prairie chicken that he sat down and began a conversation with the author.
Millions of chickens were once shipped via railroad to the markets of Chicago, New York and elsewhere. Prairie chicken recipes were in all the cookbooks of the age. The bonanza seemed endless. Until it wasn’t. Even after the era of market hunting ended in 1918, the prairie chicken continued to struggle....Before the boom, in 1821, a pair of chickens sold for the astonishing price of $5 in New York — that’s $91.50 in today’s dollars. https://honest-food.net/hunting-prairie-chickens/
View attachment 9302
I freelanced my visit to the lek on private ground, But there are plenty of places on the grasslands that are set up with blinds ..