revrusty

Making my annual trip to the Hi line in October. Found a few good areas for Huns near Shelby last year but not many. Anyone have opinions on populations of Huns and sharp tails for the 2019 season yet?

revrusty

No one replied but I see a lot of you have looked. Montana fws just released their upland game report for the year so you can look that up on their web site. Not very encouraging though better than last year. I am heading to Oregon to hunt Valley Quail.

walk213

I am planning on a Montana upland trip in the next 2 years.

Bocajnala

How did it go rev were you able to get into some birds?

-Jake

mthusker

Huns were down over much of the area I am familiar with. Pheasant were doing better, grouse about normal.....I would be very cautious about specifying certain area's on ANY forum, this is just what some are looking for who are desperate to find birds.

Oldtimr

Right on the money. The internet scouters do not deserve help!

Mickey Finn

You have to be careful with your favorite spots. But it doesn't hurt to guide out of state hunters to where they'll find a few birds. Folks have done it for me and so I try to do the same. Just not on the internet...

revrusty

Sorry I have been out of touch. In case any of you are still interested, my wife and I had a pretty good trip to Montana. We actually went all the way to Oregon to start and hunted for California valley quail for 3 days. First time after that species. Had a guide who put us on birds every day. Coveys are huge, as in 50 to 100 birds in a covey, also plenty of pheasants. In Montana, we hunt near near Rt. 2 from Shelby back towards Havre.. 4 days hunting with a couple days off for high winds. Found some birds each day but 2 to 3 coveys with low numbers of birds first 3 days. Then the last day, of course, was fantastic! Just so I will spend a bunch of money to come back! Found at least 9 different coveys maybe a couple more depending on whether it was a second flush or not. One small covey of 8, and all the rest were 15 to 20 with one huge covey of at least 25. Rare day for any year but actually got my limit. Wife got several as well. And of course had no choice but to leave the next day. So I think there is a long ways to go to get the hun population up to what it was a few years ago but if you happen to find the right pocket, they are definitely makeing progress.

Thanks all for checking in.. If you see a truck from Virginia with tag reading BRD HNT1, that's me.

JW

The Pointing Dog Journal usually has state Wild bird forecasts each year.

JW

revrusty

I take the PDJ and find it somewhat useful as far as bird forecasts go, but it usually is overly optimistic about bird numbers, in my experience. Couple years ago they were touting the wonderful bird numbers in Montana which is of course the year of the great crash in bird numbers. Locals are saying the quail are down 40 percent in Kansas this year, far below what the Journal had to say. Guess I am saying that if they say birds are low, probably right, but I have learned to look for other sources of info . Got the Montana small game biologist to call me this past year and he gave me very accurate info for the area I hunt. If I can give a hint to help others about researching an area, get a game biologist on the phone and during the conversation, invite that person to come hunt with you for a day. If they can get a day off, they will usually suggest a public area that will hold some birds. Anyway, we bird hunters are getting fewer in number and I hope all of you have success surviving the off season and getting out there next year. And invite a young person to go along when you can. Tell a game department person you are looking to take a kid hunting and they will usually be all sorts of helpful .