The second day we got up early and hit it hard. Tried a completely new area that was full of classic sharptail habitat. Rolling hills of native grass and 10 to 20% sage mixed in with buffaloberry draws, bordered by alfalfa fields. I mean, literally the stuff sharptail hunter's dreams are made of. Rowdy would roll towards the buffaloberry draws heading towards the oh-so-familiar objectives he remembered from his time living in North Dakota. He hit all the right spots. And the only thing produced was dozen or so pheasant out of a buffaloberry and snowberry draw. With 3 or 4 hours of daylight remaining I drove 45 minutes to a new area we had not hit yet. It was actually a tip from the game warden, who checked me and chit chatted for a while before I hit BMA with Rowdy. Super nice guy and he said that it looked like nice sharptail stuff to him and so I thanked him and headed there. Upon getting there I saw that indeed it was really nice stuff. Rolling hills of native grass with deeper buffaloberry draws. Also bodered by cut wheat fields. Very nice habitat. Rowdy and I hunted it for 2 hours, covering all the likely spots birds would be without finding anything. After we had turned to hit some new habitat on the way back to the truck, I watched Rowdy drop down into a coulee. Moments later the Garmin beeped and indicated Rowdy was either on point or taking a dump. I walked the 200 yards or so to catch up with him and indeed found him locked up. 2 sharptails flushed and I shot one of them on my second shot. After reloading 2 more flushed and I shot the first one on my first shot. No more birds flushed. A small 4-bird covey. He put in 23.9 miles on the Garmin that day.
The 3rd day I could tell Rowdy was starting to feel it. He wasn't ranging out much past 150 or 200 yards and sometimes was within 100 yards. It was hot. No wind. It was dry. And I hadn't conditioned him as well as I should have pre-season. But he did manage to find a "covey" of just two sharptails. The first one flushed and I shot it. 20 seconds later the second flushed while I was turned, taking a picture of Rowdy retrieving the first. Rowdy logged 11 miles that day and so we headed home. Didn't particularly want to continue to beat up already struggling birds in a low-number-year and was kind of eager to get back home to Idaho to chase our local ruffed grouse. Which we then proceded to do:
