NOT A FISHING REPORT

I got a bonus hunting trip to Montana visiting my son and DIL in Billings. The plan was to hunt public land day 1 and on my DIL Veronica's dad's ranch the next two days. Matt and I were joined by Murphy, his Brittany. The weather for the three day weekend was sunny, 30-50 degrees each day.

Day 1 started off on public land and we went back to a spot we'd hunted before. In no time at all Murphy was pointing birds. He found around 7-8 birds, most of them ended up being hens. Highlight of the day was a challenging right to left rooster that I was able to wing. The bird hit the ground running and it took a few minutes to find him. That was it for birds. We explored a couple new spots for future hunts.

The next two days we drove up to Roundup and hunted the ranch. Birds were few and far between, and what we did find were very skittish and hard for Murphy to point without flushing. We saw lots of turkeys so that may be a future adventure. Another bonus was scaring up a baby elk in a divot of cattails not more than ten feet from us, way cool!

The high point of the trip came at the very end as I wrapped up one last hunt along an irrigation ditch. As I turned to head up to the car where Matt was waiting a covey of a dozen sharptail grouse flushed in front of me. I'm hunting an over under Stevens 555 shotgun and took a shot, hitting the first bird and then turning on a second bird, dropping it. My first ever double! Pretty awesome and a great way to end the trip.

Always fun to visit my son and DIL and get a hunt in. On a sad note, Murphy got a 2" cut on his right inner thigh requiring some stitches. He never let on he was hurt till we got home and cleaned him up. Tough dog!

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