August is one of my least favorite months. It’s mostly hot, smoky and the fishing generally stinks.
The month’s main attributes are solid barbecue weather and that it’s the harbinger of better things to come. When summer finally breaks sometime in September, the best season of the year — autumn — is imminent. And autumn means bird hunting.
We’re just a couple weeks away from the start of partridge and grouse seasons, but I’m not a mountain grouse guy. I’ve chased them a few times but it’s not really a bird dog game. If I have a grouse regret it’s that I’ve yet to sort out ruffed grouse. East of the Mississippi they’re a big deal, but out West ruffed grouse aren’t commonly targeted. I don’t think I know anyone who focuses on hunting them, and that’s in all the Northern Rockies towns I’ve lived.
I have seen them crossing the road, however. And my old bird dog Jack flushed one in the backyard of our place in Pocatello. That ruffed grouse was always a head scratcher. We lived on the east side of town bordering sage and piñon covered hillsides, which isn’t where you expect to find ruffed grouse. Huns and pheasants were common, and there were even a few chukar, but I didn’t think there were ruffed grouse in that country until I saw something moving about the backyard with a clear game bird strut, and a distinctly banded tail.
I was washing the dishes and there it was, near the garden. I watched my old setter Jack get scent but the nervous bird flushed before he went on point. For a while on our evening walks I diverted Jack away from the sagebrush flats into the piñon draws hoping to find a few more, but that backyard bird was the only ruffed grouse we saw in that country.
Still, in early September, it’s either go high for mountain grouse or risk snakes out on the plains. I prefer to wait. That same cold snap that officially ends summer also settles things down for rattlesnakes. I’ll wait for the buzz worms to den up before I head out to chase birds.
Last fall I managed a few days hunting chukar in the far southern reaches of Carbon County. They were bird-less days, but they were also snake-free, which in part made up for it. There are chukar in the barren hills south of Bridger — I’ve found them. But it doesn’t seem there are many.
When the weather does change this fall I’ll head afield with my anachronistic side-by-side 20 gauge. It’s just an upland hunters firearm now, and a niche one at that. A visit to your local gun store will turn up plenty over-unders, but few, if any, side-by-sides. I picked up that used side-by-side a few seasons ago, my first, and I’m quite fond of it. I’m not sure why, but I like aiming over that wide breech. Maybe it’s because I imagine that as the birds settled down between the two barrels it presents a more stable target than one balanced atop a narrower over-under.
It’s a fantasy of course. Aiming is usually an afterthought for me, as in, if I took my time and mounted my gun rather than shooting when the butt was somewhere in no-man’s land between chest and shoulder, and if I waited for the birds to create a little space so my pattern would spread out a touch, and if I actually covered the bird rather than shooting randomly, I might occasionally hit something.
In the next few months I’ll be out sometime, somewhere, having exactly that conversation with myself. Even if my vest is empty, I’ll be in heaven.
Rob Breeding is the editor of www.mthookandbullet.com, which covers outdoor news.