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"Hunting the high plains somehow gives me solace.  People seem smaller there and so do their works."

         Afternoons, when the dogs and I are weary, I envision Utes on rawboned mustangs, up from the Great Basin after game, and I wish for a horse.  Ben Williams, noted Montana hunter/author, tells dudes, who ask why Big Sky bird hunters walk rather than ride, that horses are for work and hunting is for fun.  I know Ben is a master at high plains wingshooting, but there are times when a horse would come in handy.  

            An old friend and Blackfoot tribal elder tells me that Indian plainsmen were not as avid for bird hunting as I am.  They wore their feathers through, and mimicked the chickens’ courting display in their own.  Had they hunted with high-tailing bird dogs, odds are they would have shared my enthusiasm.  The Montana sky is big and when it’s filled with sharptails, chickens or Huns, there is no finer moment in outdoor sport. 

            The first time a home grown gun dog hits the ground in high plains country, his handler should be prepared for a dose of perspective shock.  The pup may not know whether that combine on the horizon is a myopic mirage or a strange gamebird right in front of his hose.   It may take him a while to learn that he can’t run as far as he can see.   After his first try at reaching the horizon, Junior the pointer wore a perplexed expression for quite a while.   His first “find” was a Forest Service D9 dozer.   He pointed it for some time before noting that it was a couple miles out of gun range.

            Real birds on the prairie can give a dog fits too.   It is not unusual to sight sharptails or Huns from some distance beyond their scent cones.  Yet, even in thin cover they need only duck their heads to disappear.  Otherwise reliable quail dogs don’t find this one bit funny.   Some will rush the birds to start a fight.  But, with a little patience on the part of the handler, most any hard working gun dog will learn to handle high plains game soon enough. 

            A few Montanans claim they do not need a dog to hunt their birds anyway.  They’re not quite correct.  While it’s true that a couple of hunters can drive the coulees or ride the roads and get in some shooting, my survey shows that most of these skeptics have never hunted over dogs.   Those who have won’t leave home without one.

            Here’s the scene:  Your canine detective is on a tear across sparse cover (Huns like it that way).  A hundred yards out, he anchors in a puff of dust -- you scurry ahead, scanning the thin grass -- the dog stands fast -- you kick some stones-- nothing happens -- you move ahead and stomp some more -- several of the stones in front of your dog explode in a clamor of wingbeats and shrill screeks.  Of course, you maintain nerveless poise. 

            I don’t.   Following a similar instance, Charley Waterman once asked if I was remembering to keep both eyes open while shooting.   When I told him I had better luck shooting with both of them closed, the famous author/sportsman swore off giving me gunning tips.   It takes a creative mind to drum up excuses for missing the wide-open shots sharptails and Huns usually offer.  Ruffed grouse alibis are not allowed.

            Most of the eastern uplands I visit give us cause to worry about the future of bird hunting for our grandchildren.  Hunting the high plains somehow gives me solace.  People seem smaller there and so do their works.   The Information Highway is still a two-track in the places I hunt.   Progress advances at a snail’s pace.  Even so, the sight of new asphalt under the Big Sky strikes fear in my heart, and I know I’m probably taking false comfort.

            I was listening carefully when my granddad spoke about sun-dimming clouds of prairie chickens.  I read and reread Mari Sandoz’s accounts of boundless bison herds.   It is better not to compare today’s upland gunning with that of even the not-too-distant past.   But, at times when I have walked a long way between birds, I can’t help reflecting on what Pepper, Doc, Patch and other great dogs might have become in those golden days of the Great Plains. 

            It is hard to turn out good birds dogs without birds and I’ve never seen a pup return the worse for a northern prairie training trip.   We make do with pigeons these days, but it is harder to train gun dogs today than it was when we could show them wild game and  I am not expecting the sun to be blotted out by Montana coveys any time soon.

            Harsh winters have always been a mortality factor in those parts.   Friends, whose farmyards usually hold a couple flocks of sharptails year-round, find none at all some years -- in their yards or their grainfields.    Weeks of twenty-below-zero highs and wet nesting seasons take heavy tolls on the birds in mid-Montana’s Judith Basin.  It is nothing new.   Charley Russell, the cowboy artist, worked as a hand on the Judith when he got his start by painting the “White Death” of 1886-87.  Russell recorded those frigid killing fields of cows and people on canvas, but we can only guess what became of the grouse. 

            If birds are abundant a started dog can gain a full season’s experience every time he goes afield.   When times are hard in high plains country, legwork and research may still yield the most bird contact available anywhere.   As we shall see however, my pupils are usually far ahead of their trainer in these learning situations.

            I had been advised to look for Huns on a flattop bench, bounded by a narrow coulee on one side and a vertical, 400-foot break to a stream on the other.   Most of the level land, above and below, was growing yet unharvested barley and safflower, but the bench in question was nearly bare.   Junior was a liver and white blur as he circled it.   While I watched from the head of the coulee, he whirled to a point on the very edge of the break.   I hurried to see what was up, and to keep him from leaping over the cliff.   When I cautiously peeked into the abyss in front of him, a large group of restless partridge stared back at me from a ledge below.   Those birds knew they had me snookered the moment they saw me.  They buzzed off in every direction, including a straightaway that rocketed into the  void.  While my right brain debated my left over the folly of taking a shot, the birds sailed out of missile range.  Junior streaked after a bunch that slanted back to the coulee and nailed a bird which had ducked into the near side of it.   I dropped it into the very bottom of the coulee.

            Junior, who had never delivered any dead game, gleefully slid down the slope  while I searched for a safe place to ease into the abyss.  When I finally reached the place  I had marked from above, there was no sign of a dog or a downed bird.   Following a long search which turned up nothing, I glanced toward the top and there was Junior -- right where we’d started from.  

            Sweat poured from me as I clawed my way back uphill and cussed Junior’s incompetence.  I condemned him for the lost bird, but he was standing on it with both front feet when I reached the rim.

            These wide-open spaces are the wellspring of what I now know I’ve always sought to gain from hunting -- freeness.  Under the Big Sky I can assume the freedom of the golden eagle overhead.   And my canine hunting associates are free too -- free of fencerows, four-lanes and close-in horizons.  Then, too, there is little to block our view of man’s part in nature, all the way back to earlier plainsmen.   Lacking this unobstructed vision, social meddlers will ultimately fail at sullying our ancient hunting heritage.

About the Author: 
Bill Parlasca  is a magazine writer and author living in Longwood, Florida. His work has appeared in Florida Sportsman, Outdoor Life, Saltwater Fly Fishing, and Flyfishing in Saltwater. He is a contributing editor for Gun Dog and author of the book Finders, Flushers and Fetchers.