09 upland Season

[sagegundog]

Well, today is the official start of my 09 Upland hunting season. I've got a lot of free time this fall so I will be heading out pretty much every day after work for Ruffies and Blue Grouse in the foothills. Weekends, I will head East and put some miles on for Partridge and later Pheasant. I hope to try for some Ptarmigan up high at some point this fall as well. My Brittany is just as excitted as I am. I"ll post pics as they come in.

How has others upland seasons been so far?

[whitetail Junkie]

One of the worst years ever!!! Lots of coyotes in our bird area and no birds.I got a coyote today with my shotgun,saw only oneflock of huns.Dad and I are now buying a .243 cal in a sako 85 and are going to wipe these dogs out this winter!!!

[Setterman]

I spent 2 weeks down in southern Alberta in Aug with a Pro dog trainer from the states. We would run approx 12-16 dogs a day for about an hour each, all off of horse back. We only saw one baby sharp-tail the entire 2 weeks and the adult numbers were also very low. I hunted Camp Wainwright and the harvested number were 1/3 what they have been previous years. I have also been out looking for ruffies and todate i have only seen two and elected not to "ground and pound" them so I went home with an empty game bag. In my personal opinion the hard frosts in June drasticly affected the nesting of many game birds. Perhaps this is only in the areas I hunt???? Cheers SM

[whitetail Junkie]

Originally Posted by Setterman

I spent 2 weeks down in southern Alberta in Aug with a Pro dog trainer from the states. We would run approx 12-16 dogs a day for about an hour each, all off of horse back. We only saw one baby sharp-tail the entire 2 weeks and the adult numbers were also very low. I hunted Camp Wainwright and the harvested number were 1/3 what they have been previous years. I have also been out looking for ruffies and todate i have only seen two and elected not to "ground and pound" them so I went home with an empty game bag. In my personal opinion the hard frosts in June drasticly affected the nesting of many game birds. Perhaps this is only in the areas I hunt???? Cheers SM

Well i know its the coyotes in our area ,so this winter they are dead,7 years ago this happened so dad and I bought a .223 and shot 67 coyotes in one winter in our upland wmu,this winter will be the same,they are all going to die

[wirehair pointer]

Bird hunting sounds like it is down all over the province, we in in wainwright as well, one of our groups only saw 5 or 6 birds the other didn't see a bird, pretty boring hunting. I am looking forward to getting our dogs out on the southern alberta praries, I will let you all know how it goes, but by the sounds of it, it will be pretty slow hunting.

[uplander]

We saw one ruffy and he was very*jumpy wasent able to get a shot on him so out of and 8 hour hunt one bird and an empty game bag and our dog was working realy hard .

[sagegundog]

What I've seen so far pre-hunting this year is that, in general, the total numbers are probably down from cold and rain in early summer. However, I have seen a lot of large clutch sizes. I think if hens and there nests/chicks managed to make it through the cold/rain their clutches did fantastic because there is a lot of cover this year. Just my two cents.

I'm off to go find out!

[WkndWarrior]

My son and I were out last night and we did'ent even get in the field and a covey of huns were there to meet us. My GSP was going nuts in the back of the 4Runner. Only problem was we were within 200 yards of a acreage. we walk the entire field edge were we seen birds last year but that was the only covey.

We went to our ruffy/deer spot a few miles to the east and seen two ruffies had a shot at one but missed behind.

[John_Petty]

does this go for pheasants as well ?

[kennedy]

i am quite disappointed myself. All day saturday, i saw a group of 4 and killed one. All day sunday, 3 small coveys and killed 3. It seems to be a very bad season so far

[Fish Feathers Game]

Pheasants are way down this year. I've seen hardly any this year compared to years past around the Raymond area. It was a real bad spring with the cold, rain and hail early on in the clutch season. Also, the winter was really hard on birds as most of the coulees up on the Ridge were full of snow in all the winter thermal cover areas. It's going to be a lean year for them for sure! As for Huns, I'm still seeing them. In fact a hen hatched out 17 eggs in the front horse pasture at the farm right at the base of a big willow tree.

[sagegundog]

Just got back from an evening hunt with the dog. The dog pointed 5 Ruffies. I only managed 2 of them.

There are still birds out there, the season will tell how low numbers have dropped. Does anyone know how often ruffed grouse cycle.