Celebrating Sharptails

Sharptails in flight
Photo courtesy of Steve Oehlenschlager/steveoehlenschlager.com

Observations on habits & habitat

Lewis and Clark were barely underway when they camped along the Missouri River in what is now South Dakota on September 12, 1804. The mood was probably somber, following the death of Sgt. Charles Floyd—remarkably the only crew-member fatality during the long, difficult expedition. When Clark reported seeing a number of grouse on the prairie near camp, Lewis—the more astute naturalist of the two—investigated and noted in his journal that “The Prairie fowl common to the Illinois are found as high up as the River Jaque above which the Sharp tailed Grows commence.” (Lewis’s spelling was even worse than mine, and spell-check had yet to be invented.) The Illinois birds were clearly prairie chickens, Tympanuchus cupido, with “tails composed of feathers of nearly equal length,” while in the newly observed birds’ tails “the feathers in its center are much longer than those on the sides.” 

Nearly 200 years later my wife, Lori, and I set off on another mid-September day to find some “Grows” of our own. At the time we were working as a doctor-and-nurse team on a remote Indian reservation and had received permission to hunt tribal land in appreciation of our service to an underserved community. In monetary terms that job didn’t pay much, but it didn’t have to.

Too busy to have done any scouting, our first afternoon of bird season began as an exploratory expedition. Years of prior experience with sharptails had left me with a good idea of what to look for, but we still needed to find it. We rattled down a gravel road toward the foothills of one of the nearby “island” mountain ranges to gain some perspective on the landscape. After stopping on the crest of a hill, I saw just what I’d been looking for: a golden stubblefield surrounded by thick native grasses that had made it through the summer without being over-grazed by livestock.

hunter on some plains

Plenty of sharptails are found on public land utilized for grazing rather than raising crops. Photo courtesy of Lori Thomas.

After a short drive, we set off from the truck accompanied by Maggie, our young-but-promising German wirehair. As we walked down the edge of the stubble to a shallow coulee with patches of snowberry dotting the grass, I was glad not to see birds rising from the grain. Sharptails feeding in stubble often flush wild without offering shot opportunities. I wanted the birds down in the grass where they would hold for the dog.

I felt confident about the cover we found in the draw. As if to justify my optimism, Maggie quickly froze on point. Shortly after I’d invited Lori to walk in ahead of the dog, a sharptail’s rich, reedy alarm chuckle rose above the sigh of the prairie breeze. Lori made the easy shot look even easier than it probably was.

I didn’t bother to mark the fallen bird for a couple of reasons. For one, Maggie was a capable retriever. For the other, at that time of year sharptails are usually still organized in family groups and I expected to flush more birds from the snowberry. In contrast to true covey birds like Hungarian partridge and quail, sharptails in groups seldom flush simultaneously. In good security cover they frequently offer conveniently staggered rises within shotgun range. I wasn’t worried about recovering Lori’s bird; I was just awaiting my turn.

Pheasant

Sharptails prefer a bit more cover than Huns, but they aren't typically found in dense pheasant cover. Photo courtesy of Steve Oehlenschlager/steveoehlenschlager.com

It came in due course, and within minutes we were standing with shotguns broken over our arms watching Maggie complete the first of four easy retrieves. In contrast to pheasants, wounded sharptails aren’t hard to recover. That said, a trained retriever still provides good insurance against lost game.

Two hours later we were circling back to the truck with heavy game vests, a tired-but-happy dog and ingredients for a gamebird dinner with friends.

Writing this vignette provided a wonderful opportunity to reminisce about a great day afield shared with favorite company, both human and canine. It also illustrates several practical points about a regionally distributed species that remains unfamiliar to many hunters. I’ll consider these observations in two categories: habits and habitat.

Since the sharptail’s range runs from the Upper Midwest through the Canadian Prairie provinces all the way into Alaska, it inevitably includes a wide spectrum of habitat. The observations that follow derive from my decades of experience in the productive midsection of that vast expanse and are not universal throughout. 

Sharptails probably utilize a greater variety of cover than any other Western gamebird. As with the Huns and ringnecks with which they share much of their range, grain stubble is an attractive food source to be noted when scouting. Sharptails are also the only gamebirds I find regularly in standing alfalfa. However, they don’t rely on agricultural habitat as much as Huns, and they certainly don’t require it. I’ve enjoyed good sharptail hunting in sagebrush and mountain terrain far from the nearest grainfield. As an aside, I would note that lots of Western agriculture takes place on private property requiring landowner permission to hunt. Fortunately, there are plenty of sharptails on public land largely utilized for grazing rather than raising crops. GPS navigation systems like onX are invaluable for identifying property boundaries, accessibility and ownership. 

bird in flight

Once in the air, sharptails will usually fly farther than Huns. Photo courtesy of Gary Kramer/garykramer.net

While stubblefields are easy to identify when scouting for sharptails, they don’t mean much absent good security cover nearby, the closer to grain the better. Sharptail preferences differ from those of other Western gamebirds even within the same area. Since they require open space for spring lekking activity and avoid tall trees that can harbor predatory raptors, sharptails aren’t often found in typical dense pheasant cover. They prefer a bit more cover than Huns, which I often find in ankle-high grass next to stubble. In contrast to pheasants and Huns, sharptails are a native species naturally adapted to utilize indigenous food and flora.

Sharptails roosting or hiding in nearby escape cover enter fields both on the wing and by walking. Unfortunately, they seldom fly in by consistent routes that would allow pass-shooting them like doves. Hunters without dogs would do better simply by walking up birds in nearby grass.

As the opening paragraphs illustrate, grass alone can hold sharptails as long as it’s sufficiently thick and not overgrazed. Small patches of wild rose, snowberry and other low shrubs make grass habitat especially likely to hold birds.

Taller bushes scattered across open grasslands represent my idea of ideal sharptail habitat, as they provide shade during the hot early season and shelter from wind and snow by the end. On open prairie, such bushes often provide the only sanctuary from predators ranging from coyotes to raptors. While hawthorn and chokecherry serve this purpose well, silver buffaloberry is favored sharptail cover wherever present and always deserves investigation. A lot of my sharptail hunting involves hiking from one clump of this dense, thorny shrub to another, often in steep coulee terrain.

Now on to sharptail behavior, which varies predictably within the season. While spring lekking activity has little to do with fall hunting other than to confirm birds’ presence in the general area, the display is so fascinating that everyone who cares about upland birds should observe it at least once. Sharptails also engage in some display behavior during the fall, but I avoid hunting nearby to avoid unnecessarily disturbing the birds. Chicks hatch in early June and are flying strong by September. As with other young gamebirds, they depend heavily on insects in their diet. Mature birds commonly feed on grasshoppers during hunting season, and abundant hoppers are another indicator of productive sharptail cover.

In good cover, early season sharptails hold well, making them wonderful quarry for pointing dogs. They fly farther than Huns after flushing, but I rarely attempt to follow them up anyway. Whatever I drop or don’t drop from an initial rise seems enough from one family group—which will typically contain six to 12 birds—even if I miss with both barrels (perish the thought).

hunter with dog

Staggered rises often allow hunters to take more than one bird.

As late summer progresses to early winter, sharptails often coalesce into large, wary flocks that can be very difficult to approach—a trait shared with ptarmigan, to which they are closely related. These flocks commonly have sentries posted in trees, where it is unusual to see birds earlier in the year. Cooperation for pointing dogs is largely over by that stage of the season. I’m usually through shooting sharptails then anyway, for culinary reasons. While young birds taken in September are delicious, their meat becomes progressively tougher and darker as the season progresses. The sight of a hundred sharptails on the rise can be breathtaking, but I’m usually content to watch those big flocks sail across the horizon with their distinctive flap-and-glide wingbeat pattern. Should I shoot a few then, they’ll likely wind up as jerky.

Since state hunting regulations vary constantly, it’s impossible to provide definitive information on seasons and limits. As of this writing, eight states and several provinces from Minnesota to Alaska offer sharptail seasons. Most begin in September and run into winter, although seasons are more restrictive in the eastern portion of the birds’ range. The upper plains from Nebraska north through the Dakotas and Montana to the Canadian prairie provinces are generally most productive. Don’t ignore opportunities north of the border. I’ve enjoyed great sharptail hunting in Alberta.

The previously described combination of grass and grain represents one example of good sharptail habitat. Now it’s time to explore another.

One early October day, Lori and I parked beside a remote section of public land lying in the foothills of a mountain range near our home. After we’d confirmed that shotguns and shell vests were in order, I wrestled with two excited dogs until I had e-collars secured in place around their necks. Then we set out on a half-mile hike to the sharptail cover.

Like lots of Western ground managed by the BLM, this parcel had been grazed during the summer. What grass remained wasn’t even thick enough to hold Huns, but I wasn’t worried. I knew what lay ahead. Our route led us to an overlook above a broad coulee with a dry creek bed in the bottom. Willows and briars along its banks looked like good pheasant cover, but pheasant season was still a week away. A long series of short draws ran downhill from the rim where we were standing to the creek bed, each studded with dense copses of buffaloberry. We planned to hunt down one draw, cross over to the next, hunt that one uphill, and repeat the process until we had limits of sharptails or were too worn out to continue.

On our first downhill route we flushed nothing but a pair of mule deer, which exploded from the brush and stotted away as if they were on pogo sticks. As soon as we crossed into the adjacent draw, we spotted Max, our big male wirehair, on point beside a thick clump of brush. Buffaloberry is an attractive shrub at that time of year, with silver leaves and crimson berries glistening like rubies. It’s formidable stuff, though, with long, sharp thorns and interlocking branches so dense it’s impossible to swing a shotgun while inside it. Those characteristics make it ideal security cover for everything from mule deer to grouse.

Max seemed certain that birds were ahead of him in the warren of thorns, and I believed him. While the brush patch was barely shotgun-range wide, grouse usually flush from the side opposite the hunter, leaving potential shots obstructed by brush—a good argument for hunting in pairs. Anticipating this likelihood, I waited for Lori to circle around to the far side of the buffaloberry before trying to get whatever Max was pointing airborne.

Our second dog that day was Rosy, a great duck dog that served double duty as a flushing Lab. After confirming that Lori was in position, I released Rosy from heel and sent her in ahead of Max. Moments later we heard the staccato drumbeat of wings fighting brush accompanied by characteristic sharptail alarm chuckles. I heard Lori shoot twice before a single made the last mistake of its life by flying straight over my head.

Lori had one bird lying dead on the open sidehill, as did I, but her longer second shot had sent a wounded grouse sailing into the next clump of brush downhill. Max is a capable retriever, but this was a job for a Lab. Rosy had somehow marked down the bird from her position deep in the bushes, and after a lot of crashing she eventually emerged with it in her mouth.

We still had another mile of up and down ahead of us, and we made the most of it. 

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