Here is a recount of the what was probably the coolest and best hunting experience of my life. This was in September of 2019 during the short Wyoming sage grouse season. I grew up with bird dogs and quail hunting in Texas and I've always wanted to get a chance to hunt the greater sage grouse. They're just so iconic and such a cool bird. In September 2019, my girlfriend at the time; wife now, and I made a trip from Texas to Wyoming to try our luck at hunting what to me is the most iconic and epochal game bird in North America. We loaded up our 4runner with our drahthaar Usha, our GSP Sweet Reba, some camping gear, and headed out.
To break up the trip, we stopped at our deer lease in northwest Oklahoma and spent a few days days dove hunting and getting ready for bow season. I had corresponded a fair amount with people in various bird hunting groups on Facebook, and we had decided on a spot in the sort of western half of Wyoming. We rolled into Rock Springs Wyoming late at night, and got a hotel room at a cheap but quaint little hotel. The next morning we went to the WYGF office in Green River to buy our license. The biologist wasn't available to give us any information, but the game warden on staff was extremely helpful. He told us a general place to try, and gave us the same advice everyone on Facebook had: find water. The WYGF were extremely friendly and helpful.
We left Rock Springs and drove north to a swath of BLM land that my OnX app said was almost 1 million acres. I had always heard about the sage sea, but when we got into it, it was rather enlightening on the nomenclature.
We setup our camp in an picturesque little draw to be a out of the wind and to have a nice view.
The next few days consisted of a lot of walking behind the dogs and rotating them in and out. The weather was in the mid 30's to high 60s & 70s during the day. The wind blew in the afternoon around 10-25mph. Also, it is extremely dry there. Not the best scenting conditions for the dogs. Usha with her wire coat couldn't take the heat so we hunted her in the mornings and Sweet Reba in the afternoons. One thing that added a little flair to the hunt was the pronghorn. It was full on pronghorn rut and we had dozens of run-ins with rutting bucks. They hated that white 4runner and would charge us from miles away, getting up there and then strut about all pissed off. It was a lot of fun to watch.
We had found 3 wild horse wallows on the side of a 2 track road that we nicknamed "horse water"1 through 3. We hunted in circles around each little wallow but never found any birds. I'd like to take the time here to note that the wild horses there were having a very drastic impact on the landscape and the habitat, and it wasn't good. I don't want to start a debate on wild horse management but as someone who had never even known it was an issue, it was shocking for me to see. Since the trip, I've read up a lot on the horse problem out west and have learned its a very contentious issue.
Using OnX maps and a BLM map we bought at the BLM office, we found a large spring that spilled out on the ground. We got really excited and hunted around the spring for an entire day. An area of about 15 or 20 acres around the spring had been completely trampled down from the horses, severely reducing the cover. It was here we had our first "encounter" with the birds. Sweet Reba locked down hard on a point and got our blood pressure up to about 200 over 180. We approached in from each side and saw that she was pointing a kill site. I couldn't tell for sure if was a kill from a mammalian predator or an avian predator, but I believe it was mammalian. There weren't any parts left apart from the pile of feathers and we had not been seeing a lot of raptors. Reba went on to point 2 more kill sites in that area where the cover had been trampled out by the horses near the spring. At this point we had walked about 20 miles behind the dogs and they had each run about 3 times that much. It was hot and we were dehydrated and frustrated. We had found lots of bird sign but it mostly seemed old.
We decided to head back closer to camp and stop and check out horse water 1 on the way. This was about 2 hours before the end of legal light and as we approached the horse water, I looked in the road ahead and there were about 10 sage grouse drinking from the puddle!
My God! They do exist! I absolutely could not get over how big these birds were!
The law in WY was you couldn't shoot within 30' of either side of a maintained road, plus like I had told Cassie already "We didn't dive to Wyoming to fu**ing road hunt!". We sat in the car and just watched the birds until they meandered off the road. We gave them a minute to move off the road and put down scent. It was here I made a rookie mistake that I have done quail hunting 100 times. I knew better, but in my excitement I used poor judgement. I put both dogs down, and I should have only put down one. The birds hadn't moved off the road very far and hadn't had enough time to put down a lot of scent. Also a mistake on my part. I figured based on the size of them that the dogs would smell them easily. I was wrong. The wind was in our favor but it was just too hot and dry and the dogs got pretty close to them before they pointed. They crept up trying to steal each others points and they crowded the birds too much, and put them on edge. They were still about 50 yards ahead of us on point when we approached and they flushed wild and out of range as weI tried to close the distance. Well there went our chance. When sage grouse flush, they don't just fly a little and go back down like quail. They clear out and glide a LOOOONG way.
Continued in comments:
To break up the trip, we stopped at our deer lease in northwest Oklahoma and spent a few days days dove hunting and getting ready for bow season. I had corresponded a fair amount with people in various bird hunting groups on Facebook, and we had decided on a spot in the sort of western half of Wyoming. We rolled into Rock Springs Wyoming late at night, and got a hotel room at a cheap but quaint little hotel. The next morning we went to the WYGF office in Green River to buy our license. The biologist wasn't available to give us any information, but the game warden on staff was extremely helpful. He told us a general place to try, and gave us the same advice everyone on Facebook had: find water. The WYGF were extremely friendly and helpful.
We left Rock Springs and drove north to a swath of BLM land that my OnX app said was almost 1 million acres. I had always heard about the sage sea, but when we got into it, it was rather enlightening on the nomenclature.
We setup our camp in an picturesque little draw to be a out of the wind and to have a nice view.
The next few days consisted of a lot of walking behind the dogs and rotating them in and out. The weather was in the mid 30's to high 60s & 70s during the day. The wind blew in the afternoon around 10-25mph. Also, it is extremely dry there. Not the best scenting conditions for the dogs. Usha with her wire coat couldn't take the heat so we hunted her in the mornings and Sweet Reba in the afternoons. One thing that added a little flair to the hunt was the pronghorn. It was full on pronghorn rut and we had dozens of run-ins with rutting bucks. They hated that white 4runner and would charge us from miles away, getting up there and then strut about all pissed off. It was a lot of fun to watch.
We had found 3 wild horse wallows on the side of a 2 track road that we nicknamed "horse water"1 through 3. We hunted in circles around each little wallow but never found any birds. I'd like to take the time here to note that the wild horses there were having a very drastic impact on the landscape and the habitat, and it wasn't good. I don't want to start a debate on wild horse management but as someone who had never even known it was an issue, it was shocking for me to see. Since the trip, I've read up a lot on the horse problem out west and have learned its a very contentious issue.
Using OnX maps and a BLM map we bought at the BLM office, we found a large spring that spilled out on the ground. We got really excited and hunted around the spring for an entire day. An area of about 15 or 20 acres around the spring had been completely trampled down from the horses, severely reducing the cover. It was here we had our first "encounter" with the birds. Sweet Reba locked down hard on a point and got our blood pressure up to about 200 over 180. We approached in from each side and saw that she was pointing a kill site. I couldn't tell for sure if was a kill from a mammalian predator or an avian predator, but I believe it was mammalian. There weren't any parts left apart from the pile of feathers and we had not been seeing a lot of raptors. Reba went on to point 2 more kill sites in that area where the cover had been trampled out by the horses near the spring. At this point we had walked about 20 miles behind the dogs and they had each run about 3 times that much. It was hot and we were dehydrated and frustrated. We had found lots of bird sign but it mostly seemed old.
We decided to head back closer to camp and stop and check out horse water 1 on the way. This was about 2 hours before the end of legal light and as we approached the horse water, I looked in the road ahead and there were about 10 sage grouse drinking from the puddle!
My God! They do exist! I absolutely could not get over how big these birds were!
The law in WY was you couldn't shoot within 30' of either side of a maintained road, plus like I had told Cassie already "We didn't dive to Wyoming to fu**ing road hunt!". We sat in the car and just watched the birds until they meandered off the road. We gave them a minute to move off the road and put down scent. It was here I made a rookie mistake that I have done quail hunting 100 times. I knew better, but in my excitement I used poor judgement. I put both dogs down, and I should have only put down one. The birds hadn't moved off the road very far and hadn't had enough time to put down a lot of scent. Also a mistake on my part. I figured based on the size of them that the dogs would smell them easily. I was wrong. The wind was in our favor but it was just too hot and dry and the dogs got pretty close to them before they pointed. They crept up trying to steal each others points and they crowded the birds too much, and put them on edge. They were still about 50 yards ahead of us on point when we approached and they flushed wild and out of range as weI tried to close the distance. Well there went our chance. When sage grouse flush, they don't just fly a little and go back down like quail. They clear out and glide a LOOOONG way.
Continued in comments:
