By Josh Sutherland
USA –-(Ammoland.com)- There is just something about a pointing dog that feels right, walking over a rise and seeing your dog standing tall in the cheat grass pointing wild birds is a feeling I will never get used to!
A group of friends and I took off up to Wyoming to hunt some of the vast expanses of land it has to offer.
We were going on an upland adventure chasing wild Chukars and Hungarian Partridge behind some good pointing dogs. Being from Utah we don’t have as many of birds so we were excited for the opportunity we had to go on this hunting trip so we could hunt these birds.
It was a bit colder than I am usually used to; temperatures were in the teens for most of the time and even dipped below zero for on one of the mornings! The first day action was fast and furious, we cut my new GSP pup “Sadie” a German Shorthair Pointer and my good friends Setter “Tug” loose and let them work the rolling hillsides. Within no time we had a covey of Hungarian Partridges pointed in a cheat grass and sage flat just above a small ridgeline.
The birds were hanging close to these small ridgelines and would bail off of them as soon as we flushed them, you had to be very quick on the gun or else they were out of range quickly. Being in Wyoming and the type of country was wide open with little trees where hunting usually calls for some bigger running dogs since you can see forever. Having dogs like the German Shorthair Pointer or a Setter that can cover some ground is critical for success. In two days of hunting we saw well over 400 birds and using about 300 shells we had the time of our lives!
After having fun chasing Chukars and Hungarian Partridges on the flats and ridges we decided to go chase some pheasants on some local WIA properties, my buddy James brought his young Springer “Boston” to get up some roosters for us! She is such a fun dog to hunt behind, so animated in her desire to find birds. We found a rooster that hit the ground running in the snow and went into a thick cattail wash; Boston hit that spot and nose to the ground and made a difficult retrieve on a wounded rooster.
In the end we covered a lot of terrain with our dogs, bagged three rosters, fifteen Chukars and about twenty-five Hungarian Partridges which we were really excited about.
It was one of the most memorable upland hunts I have ever been on. Being with good friends, good dogs, and with good hunting is very hard to beat.
About:
Josh Sutherland is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys hunting in the Western United States. Visit: www.sportsmanswarehouse.com