Fish & Wildlife Service considered the species as a candidate for its threatened-and-endangered list in 2013, there had been an unease among ranchers and hunters regarding sage grouse numbers, from northern California’s Modoc Valley east to Colorado’s Western Slope and north through the flyover terrain of central Wyoming and eastern Montana. But it’s also a useful term to describe sage grouse and the hunters who live to flush them.Įven before the U.S. It’s a term locals use to describe the guarded optimism that floats hope in a landscape that receives less than 20 inches of rainfall annually, and where the difference between a farm-saving crop and foreclosure hangs on every storm front. There’s a saying familiar to residents of the interior West: This is next-year country. (Photo By: Cjchiker/) Go Sooner Than Later The sage grouse remains as king of the plains. That’s the real payoff of a sage grouse hunt. But in productive sage grouse country, you can pretty much count on at least one or two encounters with a covey of bombers, sage chickens, June chickens, sage cock, and sagehens, all local names for these remarkable inhabitants of America’s sagebrush sea.Įach flush, and each bird, is indelible, but the first is unforgettable.
Bell curves being what they are, some hunts will produce birds in the first minutes of a walk, others won’t bust a flush in a full day of hiking. I just described an average sage grouse hunt. Then the prairie wind shatters your reverie, and you lead your dog in a broad semicircle to get the breeze in your face to flush the singles. A third shot is futile, because they’re now in full sail and fast out of range.īut you savor this moment, bending to retrieve a downed sage grouse, holding its unexpectedly hot body, and admiring its cloak of cryptic feathers the way you’d inspect an arrowhead picked up from this open, undiscovered country.
You get your lead right on the second, but only because of the slow, lumbering flight as stragglers get their wings beneath them. Then you recall why you’re here, and reactively shoot behind the first bird. A sage grouse flush is almost always astonishing-dozens of chicken-sized birds rising at once, causing momentary disbelief at how so many black birds of that size could stay out of sight in the wide-open prairie. Just as you’re distracted by some discomfort or other, the prairie quivers imperceptibly and then levitates. That behavior puts a premium on covering lots of ground. Even for hunters with wide-ranging dogs, sage grouse can often flush wild and unexpectedly. Or a Vibram-penetrating cactus spike, as you calculate just how far you’ve hiked from your pickup, and exactly where you parked it over the rim of the distant shimmering horizon.ĭepending on the place and the day, you are also likely to be cursing either the relentless wind or the adhesive properties of gumbo, which will stick to your boots the way shame sticks to a bad dog. You’re equally worried about stepping on a rattlesnake.
Other wonderments: how the September sun can generate so much heat after such a frosty morning, and whether or not your sweaty grip will permanently stain the patina of your shotgun.
You’re wishing you had brought more water and mosquito repellent, wondering how long West Nile Virus takes to infiltrate your bloodstream. It usually reaches its zenith a couple of hours into a hunt, as you’re parched and sunburned in a horizontal wilderness of same-looking sagebrush, terrified your dog will encounter a rattlesnake on each false point.