September 2022 - 35

SHARP-TAILED GROUSE
Wyoming is not known as a sharp-tailed
grouse haven, but in good years there can
be plenty of them from the prairies around
Cheyenne up into Powder River country.
I told a friend I'd bring horses one day and
we would pursue sharptails in style, hunting as
one imagines a frontiersman back in the day
might have hunted. Follow a brace of good
pointing dogs on a smooth-moving horse,
pull up when the dogs made birds, get off,
load up, shoot the bird, get the bird from the
retrieving dog, get back on the horse and go
your way. Repeat.
We ran this idea past a rancher we knew
in Sheridan country who owned several
thousand acres of private ground intermixed
with federal and state.
" Well, if you guys bring horses, I'm going
to ask you to help me with the fall gather
then, " he said.
That seemed like a pretty good trade, chase
a cow for a day or two, eat good ranch food
then chase a bird dog for a few more. We
spent a week at the ranch, living in a littleused
bunkhouse, keeping our horses in the
corrals and riding out into pastures to bring
out the cows. It was also one heck of a good
way to scout for the sharp-tailed grouse hunt.
After the cattle were off the range, my
friend and I went into the same country with
our unworked and anxious bird dogs and
found several coveys of sharptails over several
days of hunting. At night, we grilled their
dark-meat breasts over coals of the green ash
and box elder that grew in the washes. It felt as
if we were gentlemen of a previous century out
on the Western range with nothing but good
adventure ahead and behind, and nowhere to
go but up the next coulee.
SAGE GROUSE
My friend Tom Bell, the famous Wyoming
conservationist, rancher and World War II
hero, told me about the glory days of sage
grouse. He spoke of riding his horse behind
his family ranch and flushing dozens of the
big birds on an average ride. Perhaps not by
coincidence, Tom also told me about a wet
coulee off the Sweetwater River where he had
consistently seen grouse in his later years while
exploring along the old Oregon Trail. As any
enthusiastic hunter is prone to do, I made a
note of this place, perhaps only mentally, and
filed it away for later use.
I grew up hunting sage grouse. I hunted
them with my half-Lab, half-springer, JD, in
Sage grouse are known for their elaborate courting behavior in the spring. (Photo by Ron Hayes)
the early 1990s on the bottom end of the Red
Desert by Baggs with two kindred refugees
from a much-reviled office job in Cheyenne.
Pat had a golden retriever, Nick, a good pump
gun and we all had strong legs for the march.
When I moved to Lander a few years later,
I hunted sage grouse off horseback like Tom
did before he was shipped off to Italy to lose
an eye fighting the fascists. By the time I hit
Tom's particular draw, I had many sage grouse
to my name, so many I had begun to take
them for granted. And while familiarity may
or may not breed contempt, it certainly can
spawn complacency. These days I don't hunt
sage grouse much any more. The last one I
shot came off a point from a young setter of
mine and out of a cover where I had been
hunting sharp-tailed grouse; I recognized the
bird just as I pulled the trigger and it tumbled
sage-ward.
After the cattle were off the range,
my friend and I went into the same
country with our unworked and
anxious bird dogs and found several
coveys of sharptails over several
days of hunting. At night, we grilled
their dark-meat breasts over coals
of the green ash and box elder that
grew in the washes.
Wyoming Wildlife | 35

September 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2022