We’re hunting sharp-tailed grouse on public land in western North Dakota in the rain.
This isn’t significant because it demonstrates our heroic indifference to the elements or simply lends credence to the fact that we aren’t smart enough to come in out of the weather.
Rather, it just seems odd that we’ve spent the better part of the morning driving, looking for land that, by chance and whatever unseen forces, caught enough rain during a statewide drought to grow sufficient cover to satisfy the birds, and now it’s raining.
We’re out here for fun, of course, for our enjoyment, where the scenery is easy on the eyes and much of the land open to public access. Yet, you can’t shake the obvious, and the rain is a reminder, that there are people out here – and elsewhere in the state – who make a living off the land and certainly haven’t had an easy go of it.
So, the rain, while certainly tardy, is welcome. We can oil our shotguns when we get home.
Where we’re hunting is familiar, or maybe more than that. In 2019, my youngest had a cow elk tag in this neck of the badlands where we burned enough boot leather and ate our fill of granola bars and jerky in the dirt miles from the pickup to say then, and now, that we gave filling the once-in-a-lifetime tag our best shot.
Our results, like the jerky, were tough to swallow considering we never saw one animal. Not an elk hightailing it two ridges over. Not an elk crossing in the headlights. Nothing.
Yet, today, while eating boiled eggs and fried chicken over our laps inside the pickup, we spotted some elk through rain-splattered windows playing hide-and-seek in a cedar-choked draw that would take a half-hour to hike to if we had a reason to do so.
For a minute or two, it felt like a big deal finally spying these animals on the hoof, in the wild. Two years too late, of course, but still.
What elk hunting out here revealed to us were a number of spots sharp-tailed grouse like to hang. Some were obvious – acres of native grasses, dotted by patches of buffaloberries that offered midday shade and a food source – and others, well, not so much.
We’re hunting one of those latter spots because it’s pretty, if you ignore the rusted, silent oil rig near where we park, and because it’s off the beaten path and it’s unlikely we’ll bump into other hunters.
I’m wearing a backpack, carrying extra shotgun shells and two 32-ounce water bottles just in case our planned mile or so hunt turns into something more adventurous if we start bumping birds. My two boys – they will always be boys to me even though they passed that stage years ago – are traveling lighter. Shotgun shells stuffed into pockets and little else.
The leaves are already starting to change here and it’s easy to get caught up in the scenery as we walk the edge of finger draws that drain into a much bigger, steeper draw that, if you took a misstep, you’d tumble for a while.
I hear a shot and see one of my boys carrying a grouse by it’s feathered-to-its-toes feet. I hear more shots, but trees now block my view and since neither hunter is much for hooting and hollering, I don’t know the outcome.
I’ll never tire of the flush of early season sharptails as long as I’m able to do this. They explode from grass close enough to give you a start, but leave you with ample time to gather yourself and pull the trigger.
This civil behavior won’t last long as the young birds will over time garner that flighty, edginess that has served this native species so well for eons.
I know my boys hear me shoot, but what I can’t hear as I stuff the dead bird in my backpack with the water bottles, is them joking about how the old man probably missed again.
