A story of reaping the rewards of hunting abroad

“It took a day and a half to get there,” said Cory Duerr, a traveling wing shooter who lives just outside of Cadott, talking about his bird hunting trip to Montana last September. “I’ve found that it works better to time out passing through larger cities at night or mid-day. I also try to not mess up my sleep schedule so that when I get there, I’m ready to hunt that afternoon or the following morning.”

For many prairie bird enthusiasts, a Montana hunt represents a bucket list hunt. He sought to hunt sage-grouse, often called sagehens, for the first time. They are the largest of the 12 North America grouse species with males measuring up to 30 inches and weighing as much as seven pounds. The most threatened of the grouse species, a handful of states still possess huntable populations of sage-grouse.

“The first four days of hunting was tough it got well into the 90’s so I could only hunt for a few hours in the morning, and an hour or so in the evening,” Cory told me. “Each dog could only hunt for about 30 - 45 minutes before I had to swap them out the first couple days.” Along with the high temperatures he mentioned there was a constant smoky haze due to the Canadian wildfires. He set up a base camp with his camper trailer and traveled up to two hours in different directions depending on what species he planned to hunt each day. “I tried to hunt the whole day in an area once there,” he told me. One day he ran into a bunch of hunters from Wisconsin that he knew and spent some time catching up with the unexpected company of good friends.

After spending a couple days in the sage brush hoping to cross a bucket list bird off his list, he switched to Hungarian partridge and Sharptails. “The number of Huns that I found this year was great, compared to previous years” Cory told me. “Hunting in the prairie is awesome. You get to see the dogs let loose and cover ground.

It’s very different than in the Northwoods, where you seldom get to see the dogs work through the trees. My absolute favorite thing is seeing a young dog ‘figure it out.’ That makes my whole trip.”

After Montana and a couple weeks of hunting ruffed grouse in Wisconsin he headed to northern Minnesota to hunt some new areas and harvested his first spruce grouse. In late October he headed to North and South Dakota, bagging his first prairie chicken. “We enjoyed mix bags for prairie chickens, sharp-tailed grouse, and pheasants,” he told me. After some gun deer hunting in Wisconsin, he headed to Kansas with a friend to hunt bobwhite quail.

Cory told that me that he likes to live cheap on hunting trips, often dining on the game he harvests. Experiencing foods that we can’t get in Wisconsin provides part of the lure for traveling bird hunters. Like tasting moose meat or elk for the first time, the experience of tasting sharp tail grouse of the first time stays with you.

When January arrived, Cory decided to load up his dogs and head to Arizona for some desert quail hunting. “Each type of quail acts so differently, and has their own learning curve,” he told me. “The temperatures were pleasant. I only bagged four quail but had a great time with good friends.” After several days of hunting Cory harvested Mearns’s and scaled quail, with the Gambel’s still on his bucket list for next year. Toward the end of his Arizona trip, a winter storm was brewing and he needed to be in Kansas for a work meeting in a few days, so he headed out early. “I got into Kansas and had a day before the storm to hunt,” Cory said. “In one day, I was able to harvest more bobwhite quail than all the birds I bagged in Arizona,” he told me. “It was a good way to end my season.”

Hunting in seven different states, bagging nine different species of upland birds over six months makes for a great season, but it started with a goal for sage-grouse. Arizona just happened. I had to ask about his plans for next season.

“I’ve hunted Montana for 5 years now, and every time I leave, I can’t wait to do it again!” he said. “I decided to go back next year the day I left.”

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