Sask. Upland Hunt a Bust

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Pete G

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My wife and I made our 4 th annual drive from the Eastern Townships of Quebec to Southern Saskatchewan with our two English Setters....3000 km each way and the road is not great.......our trans Canada highway is nothing to be proud of!!

There appear to be virtually no Hungarian Partridge left in Southern Saskatchewan.....We cut our trip very short and made the long drive home feeling pretty discouraged.A killer winter followed by a killer spring seemed to wipe out even brood stock.

I am thinking that it may take 3 ideal nesting seasons in succession for these birds to be present in huntable numbers.Mother Nature does not often co operate in these matters.... so who knows how long it will really take,if ever?

Any one else have anything to report on this?

Any one have a suggestion for a destination for next year's upland trip ?

Anything on the US side ......perhaps not so long a drive?
 
I wouldn't have cut my trip short, just head N.E. for some of the best duck and goose hunting anywhere, or bear just north of that, upland bird numbers are cyclic like rabbits, prolly because of coyotes. So why not help the birds out and hunt coyotes while in that area? Quite often the versatile hunter has the best hunt of his/her life!
 
Last winter was brutal on Huns and Sharptails.
Having said that, where we find coveys, we find big ones. The survivors of winter had good nesting success. Just fewer coveys to be found.
I did the go-around of an old farmyard where we always find Huns on the way to deer hunting and there were two dozen of them. They made monkeys of us, as Huns often do.
Do not give up on Saskabush.
The game birds will be back. Zones 9, 10 and 14 are the places I have hunted so far this year.
 
I think that lots of the birds died from winter kill, and also a lot of the nesting site in the low lying areas were flooded,many miles of creekbeds has water levels never seen before in the Weyburn area, where there is a lot of good bird hunting to be done on a normal yr !! Also, the coyotes and foxes had a pretty good yr due to the deep snow so lots of winter kill deer kept them full, and many bird nest were more than likely hit by them due to the numbers that we have around here these days !! Foxes are more likely to hit the bird nest than the coyotes as they will drag down newborn deer ,calves etc than a fox .
 
anyone know how the pheasant population in the souris valley faired the spring flooding? considering the water was 5 feet up the door of the farmhouse, don't think hunting in the valley bottom is going to be good for a while.
 
I was just down in North Dakota this weekend and they were complaining about lack of upland game birds of all species.

Like others mentioned, it was a rather tough winter on all game this past one.
 
I have noticed a decline over the last three years and as such we have been leaving them alone and focusing on predators. Hard winters, cold wet springs, and high water have taken their toll.

It sucks though, I love both hunting and eating huns. (even though myself and my usual hunting party are terrible shotgunners) It is probably my most favourite activity.
 
It seems the survival/nesting success of the various species depends on their choice of habitat.

In the area northeast of Edmonton where we hunt upland, for example, ruffed and sharptail grouse as well as huns were all hard to find last year.

From what we've seen this year, ruffed grouse are everywhere - even in areas traditionally dominated by sharptail. Sharptail and hungarian partridge remain scarce.
 
From the reports that I have heard the upland numbers in southwestern Manitoba are way down as well, but by all accounts duck numbers are booming. If I travelled that far to hunt upland I don't think I'd have cut my trip short though. The forest fringe area in Saskatchewan should have had some decent ruffed grouse hunting if Manitoba is any indication. The last time I hunted ruffies over a couple of pointers I had a blast. Better luck next year!
 
All of the things above are obviously contributing factors,but around here I believe the number one reason for the decline in upland numbers have been the steady increase of hawks.Something has to be done or Sharptails and Huns will be a thing of the past IMO.
 
powder monkey said:
All of the things above are obviously contributing factors,but around here I believe the number one reason for the decline in upland numbers have been the steady increase of hawks.Something has to be done or Sharptails and Huns will be a thing of the past IMO.
Click to expand...

I have to agree around here you often see eight to ten hawks to a mile,we were hunting partridge on Monday and every tree row we went down there was a hawk or two flying down the tree row.
When the hawks take off for the winter you will see a lot more huns come out.
 
Huns and Sharptails evolved with hawk predation as eternal survivors.
Not all hawks feed on game birds. Some are just mousers. Depends on the species.
If predation was the issue we would have been seeing only adult birds or small coveys with few young. Predation is density dependent and much more successful on young birds.
In fact we have been seeing big coveys, just fewer of them in 9, 10 and 14. Speaks to good nesting success for the few bird pairs that survived winter in those zones.
Old man Winter did a job on the game birds last year - all the signs point to that.
 
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