Trek across the prairie: Early prairie chicken season a test of conditioning

Ted Gartner trekked across prairie flats for a half-mile or more, then gained elevation headed toward Smoky Hill ridges high enough for 40-mile views. Within an hour, his truck and dog trailer appeared as tiny dots where he’d parked them near farmlands and grasslands.

By 10 a.m., Gartner’s shirt was soaked with sweat and the tongues on the two hunting dogs he’d been using hung like soup ladles from their mouths. Kenneling that pair and letting another run free from the trailer, Gartner and Barth Crouch again headed across the rolling prairie.

By noon, they covered more than six miles and hadn’t fired a shot.

“This is my favorite,” Gartner, from Lenexa, said of the Sept. 15-Oct. 15 early prairie chicken season. “I always can’t wait to get out in the fall to do some bird hunting, and this style of hunting is conducive to my kind of bird dogs, the big running dogs that I like to watch roll across big country.”

About 30 years ago, biologists created the early season primarily for those who love to use dogs on the big prairies of Kansas. This time of the year, prairie chickens are often in small flocks made mostly of hens and their young. They are more likely to hold tight than the larger flocks of late fall and winter.

When the seasons were created, it was mainly for hunters in the Flint Hills, then America’s top grasslands for greater prairie chickens. As populations have declined in the Flint Hills, they’ve increased in the Smoky Hills, which run from near Salina to Hays and further west.

“People who think (greater) prairie chickens aren’t doing well don’t know what they’re talking about,” said Crouch. “There are plenty of prairie chickens in the Smoky Hills. There’s no shortage. They’re doing great out here.”

There’s also no shortage of places where the birds might hide amid the wide pastures of grass, feeding on grasshoppers and other insects. Even in areas with a lot of the birds, half-day walks with none killed by hunters aren’t uncommon. To Crouch, of Salina, it is much of what attracts him to the sport.

Later in the winter, when cold and snow concentrate things such as pheasants, quail and prairie chickens around the best food sources and roosting habitat, Crouch said it can be almost too easy to find the birds.

Monday’s marathon march began with Sage, an English setter, snapping into a solid point barely five minutes from the truck. Unfortunately Rex, an overly exuberant English pointer, missed the memo that he was supposed to stop and honor the point and busted the group of about eight prairie chickens out of gun range. The hunt was called in the early afternoon because the heat affected the dogs more than the people.

“I’d much rather get sunburn than frostbite,” said Gartner, who stopped often on the hunt to squirt water in the mouths of his dogs. “but this is one of the most demanding hunts there is for dogs. It’s tough.”

It’s also great at conditioning two and four-legged hunters for upcoming days afield. Every fall and winter Gartner from Texas to Montana.

Tuesday’s power hike was in Ellsworth County, in pastures Crouch knew well. In the final minutes of the final walk of the morning, he shot two prairie chickens with his .410. Gartner missed a bird.

As well as hopefully shooting a few prairie chickens, Gartner likes the early season because it often gives his dogs a chance to work coveys of quail and pheasants, which aren’t legal to shoot for several more weeks.

Late Tuesday morning, Gartner found Rex in a classic point at a place where Crouch predicted he’d find prairie chickens. But it was a covey of at least 20 quail that cycloned up and around Gartner as he neared the dog. Rex pointed a few more birds that had held after the main covey had risen. Gartner laughed at every flush.

“I’ll take that over shooting a prairie chicken any day,” he said as he headed for his truck and eastern Kansas. “This isn’t about shooting birds, it’s about the dog work. That right there made all of the walking worthwhile.”

This story was originally published September 27, 2015 at 6:49 AM with the headline "Trek across the prairie: Early prairie chicken season a test of conditioning."