The summer of 2007 was spent in anticipation of the best season yet. I was getting used to shooting my Ruger Gold Label by practicing at the skeet range and sporting clays courses. The Setter's were enjoying life in the Love Creek valley working birds I'd set out for them and guarding the perimeter of the yard from any encroachments by pigeon's squirrels and chipmunks. They'd be kenneled outside while I was away at work unless the temperatures and humidity were to high then they'd be in the comfort of the climate controlled garage.
I had already decided upon another North Dakota trip for September for Sharptail and the return in October for Pheasant and mixed bag hunting. January was now committed to visiting our friends in SW Kansas again for Quail, Pheasant and Prairie Chickens. Deer hunting I fit in while working my existing schedule since I hunted at home starting the third week of November.
Then one day while I was on the job talking with one of our long term employees and good friend Lori she had mentioned her parents had moved to Montana and were working on a ranch in southern Montana. Having been farmer's all their life Stan and Sharon had vacationed for many year's in western Montana around Yellowstone and decided to fulfill a life long dream and move west. Lori was excited describing the area as related by her parents. She had plans to visit before returning to school in the fall. Knowing the upland species that inhabit the Montana plains and agricultural areas my antennae went up! I started asking Lori questions and ended up giving her a list of species to ask the ranch manager about and of course asking her parents if it was possible to gain access to hunt. I knew Lori's parents as both she and her sister had worked for us for year's. Good people. I enjoyed them all and we were lucky to have the girls as employees and friends all those year's. Well Lori came back and the answer first of all to being able to gain access to hunt as guests of Stan and Sharon was....Yes! And the answer to the list of species was...Yes! There are Pheasant's, Sharptail and Hun's present. This was exciting. I called Stan and Sharon and talked with them further. Stan was in charge of maintaining all the irrigation equipment so he had been seeing Pheasant's of course and Sharptail but not Hun's. However a neighbor Charlie Yellowhorse said that he had seem them before. The challenge Stan said was that this is a big place and not being a hunter himself couldn't be much help but that we were welcome to come out and try our luck. Big place as in 50,000 acres and then thousands more in leased land. This was primarily a cattle operation with a large feedlot a staff of farmer's,cowboy's,cooks and a mechanic. There was a manager for the cowboy staff and one for the agricultural side as well as a general manager. A bunkhouse,cookhouse,office, and commissary that was also once a butcher shop in year's past. There were several houses on the property utilized by the ranch staff. I would later learn all the history of the ranch and how it evolved to it's present day status but for now we had what looked like a great opportunity. When I asked if anyone else hunted out there the answer was not really there were a few people that had duck hunted along the river bottom but this was very private property and not a hunting destination for the general public.
Well I shared the information with Tom and we both agreed It was worth checking out so we then looked at our schedules. The only way we could make it work due to December being filled with holiday obligations was to go the second week of November as we didn't want to get to far into the month afraid of the possibility of bad weather. So we confirmed with Stan and Sharon. We were going to Montana! And North Dakota. Twice! And Kansas! A Dream Season.
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