The explosion almost knocked me off my feet. Sharp-tailed grouse blew out of the ochre and gray groundcover--a couple of dozen or more. I wasn't sure of the number, it all happened so quickly.
The first shot came from the hip and drew nothing but clear air. The second came from shoulder height and rolled one of the fleeing sharps, a miniature cloud of feathers drifted on the peaceful September breeze.
I love bird hunting on the high plains of Montana east of the Continental Divide. Although many people put down hunting sharptails, I don't. Sharptails get up into the air like rockets. They fly hard and fast. They're native to my country--beautiful, wide-open, undisciplined, unspoiled turf.
Just look at where I was hunting on this out-of-the-world, gorgeous day. The sky was blue. The air was crisp. Not cold, but smelling sweet with the dying grasses and the hint of winter. The snow-covered Rocky Mountains were to the west. An isolated pocket of mountains was quietly climbing into the sky to the east, trying to sneak into heaven. The salmon-colored breaks of the Milk River on its Alberta sojourn were just a heart song away to the north. South was just south--coulees and bluffs wandering forever.
My Springer spaniel, Bouchee, was quartering back and forth without a clue. He hadn't been around for a year yet, but his free-form enthusiasm more than compensated for any training shortcomings. He was already, in our brief association, a dear friend.
Where I live on the west side of the Continental Divide is far different than this. Home is filled with thick carpets of dense spruce, lodgepole, and larch pine forest. Ragged ridges of untamed mountains run rampant in every direction. Fantastic country, but the plains are more than special to me. The unimaginable horizon, the vastness, the lack of people, the beat-up, dusty, gravel roads, the sheer freedom of the place is intoxicating.
The fact that there are also upland birds and generous rivers filled with trout makes this wondrous place paradise in my mind. Give me a shotgun, fly rod, a tarp and sleeping bag, a little food and drink, and I'm home in a foreign land.
Bouchee and I worked down through a coulee clogged with chokecherry and thick grass. The dog bounced a couple of sharps right up in front of me. Easy shots that I managed to miss with panache. They flew downwind and I marked where they landed. We worked slowly towards the birds. Bouchee was on to the game now, working steadily with a nose that only springers possess.
His little tail started whirling in frantic circles. Head held high, he stopped dead in his tracks and looked back at me. I was ready and said "Go get 'em." He did and the birds busted up out of the cover; I fired twice and dropped one. Bouchee hopped and leaped to the bird and then went airborne with the sharp back towards me. Do springers ever have all four feet on the ground at one time? Even when asleep? I wonder.
I took the bird from his mouth. It felt warm and soft. The moment was so fine it was bordering on maudlin. So what? The dog was looking up at me with his brown eyes and I could see his thoughts. "You bet, buddy, this is a damn good thing we got going here."
The day was warm and we'd walked a few miles through great country, but both of us needed a drink, so we strolled back to the truck together. Two fairly good guys who got lucky one more time thanks to the high plains.
Copyright (c) 1996 John Holt. All rights reserved.
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