Wow, what great September weather for hunting, fishing and hiking! Recently, I’ve spent several days doing all three.

Two weeks ago, I made a trip to Eastern Montana to hunt sharptail grouse. Last year was a very wet year and the grouse were scattered because there were good food sources all over my farm and adjacent BLM. We found very few birds. This year we had a dry spring and early summer. In August we received some unusual heavy summer rains that made the prairie green up again.  But even with lots of good food sources, I found the sharptails concentrated in or near harvested grain fields.

I saw birds each morning and evening that I hunted. My shooting was poor but I did manage to bag a couple of nice sharptails. One morning I hunted the south part of my farm and adjacent BLM land for two hours but couldn’t raise a bird. But as luck would have it, as I drove into my farmstead area, I spotted a flock of sharpies feeding nearby.

Out came the shotgun and I approached the birds. As they flushed, I dropped two birds. That made me feel confident. Then I was humbled again as I missed the next two shots. Finally, the last bird flushed and I dumped him. That is when I made a mistake. Instead of going directly to where the bird fell, I continued to circle through the deep grass and alfalfa for additional birds. But I kicked up no more birds. I then retrieved the first two birds that fell in shorter grass.

I went back to where the last bird fell, but couldn’t find it in the deep crested wheat grass and alfalfa. I even used some marker tape to mark where I thought the bird went down. Then I methodically searched the surrounding area with no luck. I knew the bird was dead, but finding it in the deep grass was difficult because its feathers blend in with the vegetation. After 45 minutes of searching, I gave up. I needed a dog badly.

That downed bird won’t go to waste — it will be found and eaten by a coyote or hawk. I did find a dead duck in that field. Apparently it flew into the overhead power line and broke its neck. That will be another free meal for a predator.

One thrilling wildlife sighting on my farm was seeing five whitetail bucks in Katie Coulee. Three of the bucks were young 2- or 3-point whitetails. The fourth deer had a decent but smaller 4-point set of antlers. It would be a marginal shooter. But the fifth buck was a dandy. It was a beautiful 5-by-5 whitetail with tall points and a very wide spread. It is one of the biggest whitetail bucks I’ve seen in 60 years of whitetail hunting. You can bet he will be hunted this fall.            

Last Sunday was another good day of outdoor activity. My neighbor, Rich, and I drove to our favorite grouse hunting area west of town. We hunted for a half hour before spotting our first grouse. Rich shot one of the two grouse in that covey.

A short way farther up that road, we spotted a covey of six blue grouse. We bagged three of those birds. Those were the only birds we saw.

Later we stopped at my cabin and fished for an hour or so. There were plenty of deep fish on the fish finder, but they wouldn’t bite on this warm afternoon. We caught only one perch. But what a beautiful day to be on the lake.

This week, if I get my work done, I intend to do some archery hunting for elk. So get out, have fun and enjoy Montana’s great outdoors.