I love a fast-and-furious day of hunting Hungarian partridge, but there are times when a desire comes to travel through shrub grasslands in the shadow of the Rocky Mountain range to hunt the largest native North American gamebird species, the greater sage grouse. Called the “cock of the plains: by members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, greater sage grouse were once the most plentiful gamebirds on the High Plains.
Maybe it’s the habitat in which they live or maybe it’s the wildness of the birds themselves, but both seem prehistoric. Sage grouse are special and hunting them with pointing dogs is a true pleasure because they give off a tremendous amount of scent and they flock up, sometimes forming groups of 30 birds. Once flushed, their whirring wings over a sea of sage cast shadows on the prairie.