It’s the last week of August. The kids are returning to school, and if you’re a teacher, like me, the work year is ramping up. It’s hot, just about everywhere this time of year, and hoot owl restrictions are in place on rivers across Montana.
It’s just another summer making one last flex before it gives way to the GOAT of seasons: fall.
Yes, fall. It will blast away the remnants of summer, soon, though probably not as soon as we’d like. I remember how September used to arrive in Montana and immediately put its mark on the weather. But the cooler weather of football season has more of a slow roll out these days.
As an aside, on the Great Plains where I’m preparing for the first day of classes Monday, September has none of the glamor I remember from those Septembers past. September is just like August here. Maybe a little less hot, but in this humidity you’ll hardly notice. We have to wait until October on the Plains to turn the corner.
The good news for those of us so inclined is upland game seasons soon begin to open across bird country. I’ve not seriously hunted prairie grouse in years, but I used to be fanatical about sharptails. My first bird dog, Jack, learned to hunt on sharpies in Idaho during the first two crucial years of his hunting career.
Those birds are perfect for a young bird dog. They hold well for a point. And they also hold well for a second point. Then, if you still haven’t killed one, the covey will typically fly to the next county, but Jack learned a lot in that process.
One unavoidable problem with prairie grouse is heat. That Idaho season was short and didn’t begin until October, when, in even a warming climate, there’s usually been a few weeks of frost. Frost is a necessary ingredient for low-stress bird hunting on the prairie, as upland birds generally share their habitat with rattlesnakes. Buzzworms need the coaxing of freezing temperatures to retire to their communal dens until spring.
I did well on sharptails in my time, first in Idaho and later on in the Sweetgrass Hills when I drove across the divide from Kalispell. This would have been perfect if I’d enjoyed eating them more, but unless you like your upland bird meat nice and dark, they are a bird that’s difficult to prepare. I used to pan sear young-of-the-year sharptails to medium rare, and those birds were good, especially if I deglazed with a little bourbon to make a pan sauce.
The larger, older birds were more of a challenge. I ultimately found the old French technique for preserving duck leg quarters, a confit, was the best way to deal with older sharptails. That, or learn to pick out the smaller, young-of-the-year birds on the flush, lol.
I wish I’d better learned the ways of Huns when I lived where they were plentiful. That bird has always been a mystery for me, and I’ve only killed a few. Chukars have been my go-to partridge, however, these are an after-a-hard-frost kind of bird. It doesn’t matter when the season officially opens; if there hasn’t been a hard frost followed by consistently cool temperatures, it’s a little unsafe to try and hunt chukars.
I’ve hunted the ground in Montana where there are huntable populations of chukars as it’s immediately adjacent to where I used to hunt the birds in Wyoming, and there are more rattlesnakes in that country than birds.
Do your dog a favor and wait before you hunt chukars. Even though the season opened in Wyoming in mid-September, I always waited another month before hunting those birds, and we still ran into a buzzworm or two. It isn’t worth the risk.
But it is worth the wait, if you’ve the legs for it.