Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game Sharptail 2021

Got a late start in ND's sharptail season, finally getting out this morning. Even then, it was pretty much a spur of the moment thing - needful things gathered up, getting the Subaru loaded. Drove about 45 miles west of here, where I consider the true sharptail habitat to start. Since I'm not local out there, I rely on the ND PLOTS (Private Land open to Sportsmen) program to find suitable ground with guaranteed access. The first piece I wanted to walk wasn't accessible to me, as I was coming up from the south and the direct access was on the north side - or I had to drive prairie road to get there. I opted for a second parcel about ten miles away. Definitely a good choice. Parcel was roughly L shaped and we flushed a single (just at the edge of gun range, so I let it go) within the first 300 yards. Then a second single flushed wild about 300yds out. Coming over a hilltop at the tip of the L, we ran into a covey of about 10-12 birds. I missed my first shot, and dropped that bird with the second. A short while later, we flushed another single, and missed it twice (scared it though!). Then skirting a cattail slough on the edge of the property back to the car we started seeing whitetails....nine of them total. And about the time my springer hit their trail, she started to go nuts. I was thinking it was all the deer scent, but nope....another covey of sharptails. I picked out a straggler and with my second shot it turned and headed, obligingly, in the direction of the car, landing about 200 yds away from it. As we were nearing the spot where it landed we had a trio get up and I dropped the closest bird. Then when the bird we were pursuing flushed, I nailed it too, completing my limit of 3 birds. Not the best shooting on my part,but about par for my first time out. As a campfire tie-in, the gun I was using is a Borchers Celta in 16ga, that I bought from another member here in the classifieds last winter. Nice little Spanish-made SxS with double triggers. I was using Baschieri & Pellagri's F2 Classic load in #6s - this is a 2 5/8inch hull load that works well in all of my 16s. I use the #6 load for these early season birds, and a #5 load for the late season (knocks the snot out of wild pheasants!). Left the house just after 8 this morning, was back in the car for the ride home by 10:30. All told, we saw probably 30 birds total. Gotta love that!