Hi all,

I will be chasing Huns in two weeks on a friends farm near Camrose, AB.

He has corn, canola and barley with lots of bush patches in between and says right now as he is harvesting they are flying up infront of the combine, so sounds like the birds are there (plenty of food crops).

Can any of you provide tips/info on hunting these birds? I have no dog unfortunately, just me and a 55 year old 'grad student grade' Stevens pump gun with Federal #6's

Any advice on tactics would appreciated (I am also going to target Ruffed and Sharptail grouse)

Cheers

Hi there
I grew up in Sask. and had the pleasure of learning to hunt upland game with some university buddies.Huns are an interesting bird to hunt. They are a small, fast target, so #7 or #8 would be a better choice. Many time I had the whole flock run along the ground out of sight and then fly. Shooting one over a cut field or summer fallowed field, pay close attention to where they fall. I too hunted without a dog, a dead Hun in a field looks like a dirt lump!
#6 or larger pellets are fine for sharptail.
#6,or 7 is fine for ruffed.
All I ever did was slowly walk around the edge of the fields, eyes peeled for spilled piles of grain, no matter how small. Also watch for berries and rosehips on the edge of cover, sharptail and esp. ruffed like those. Any grain bins out in the field are worth a look. If they are used to farm vehicles and people around, getting to within gun range shouldn't be too hard.
Where I live in BC, I get to hunt Ruffed or spruce grouse. Deer hunting around Ft St. John i get the odd poke at a sharpie. I miss hunting Sharpies and Huns in Sask.!
I hope this is of some use to you.
Have fun!

Thanks...
I figured on walking the field edges and brush rows...
I will be packing some 7.5's as well.

I hope I get some!

yeah, 7 1/2's should work just fine. We hunted them with Scruffy last year in the dry country, and we focussed on the rough patches along the roads, hedges, patches of shrubs, that type of thing. I guess it also depends on the time of day. When do huns go out to feed? You may find them further out into the fields during those times.

Good luck, I absolutely enjoyed chasing a limit of huns, as a break in scaling the slopes looking for sheep and mule deer.

Frans

We shoot a pile of huns every year as a tune up for pheasant season. Forgive me if I hurt the purests but the best way to find coveys fast is to drive (yes drive) the stubble fields flushing the covey initially with the truck. Watch where they land and get after them. Obviously landowner consent (and perhaps participation) is a key element. Have fun!

Early morning will find the huns still in bed. Then for a couple hours they will be in the fields feeding. Around 10:00 they head for cover. Favourite sites then are abandoned farm sites esp any with carragana hedges.If the area you are hunting is dry then check sloughs and dug outs as they do like water on hot days. Around 4:00 they head to the fields again. One very common location to find them is near or on back roads as the love to gravel before heading to nest for the night.A favourite of mine is to check the heads of small finger coulees, small ravines, the last hour of the day.
as for food preferrences they seem to like small grains like wheat, barley but I notice they do like to mix their diet. Sometimes their crops are full of weed seeds, green leaves, occassionally peas, even mustard. Canola is not a common food souce but will be taken on occassion.
When shooting them there is a tendencey to flock shoot but try to avoid this. Only early season young birds will exhibit a ragged rise. Later they will all get up and go at the same instant. hat makes it hard to concentrate on one bird is the fact that they will all head in the same direction and criss cross durring their escape. Pick one, stay on him and they are not as hard to bag. However if you try to see the whole flock you will have trouble.

Again use no 7 1/2 or 8 with a modified choke. I use an O/U with mod and improved mod and light loads.

Sharptails are often found in similar areas but more often near native prairie. Until the first snows or very heavy frost the sharpies stay in big natural grass pastures feeding on grass hoppers and rose hips. A good snow will bring them into the grain fields. For sharptails I go with no 6 and again relatively light loads. They are a bit faster than they seem so be sure and swing through on them.

Thanks Murf....
They have wheat too, so thats a good sign...my mate says he has seen them dropping into the canola when alarmed...perhaps good cover?

So early morning (sunrise-ish) is best to check heavy cover (hedges, brush lines etc)?
Sharptails are still closed next weekend in his WMU (open O1) but Ruffed are open, as are Spruce, so three species to look out for..)

Cheers

Finding Huns in southern Alberta is not difficult. Getting landowner permission is the challenge. Once you have permission, hunting technique is pretty simple. Just walk along boundary strips where there is a bit of cover.

A dog is not critical to finding Huns, unlike pheasants, but dogs are a real asset when picking up cripples. Huns run like pheasants when wounded.

7 1/2 shot through an IC choke is fine early in the season, but you will need to tighten up your choke as the season progresses. You will end the seaon with full choke, that is, if there are any left that didn't flush when you stopped the truck!

One more tip. If it is windy do not expect to find huns in cover. They depend on their hearing for safety and when the bush is "noisy" they will move to short stubble or even fallow fields in order to hear predators.
Also given time you can locate many flocks by hitting their preferred basess Most flocks seem to have 3 areas they will use as bases. This is especially true in years when there are lots of coveys. When flushed from stubble they will head for cover or vice versa.

/

ALF,

I am a grad student here...this is my last winter before homeward bound, so taking in some hunting (took a whileto get PAL, WIN and all the necessaries). Shot some ducks last saturday actually....

I have spent a good deal of time in BC (6 summers) but not close to you I believe (you are far north?)

Ja, I meet a few docs every now and then. Kinda makes me wish there were not so many! To be honest I haven't realy befriended any South Africans, just one doc been here for 15 years though and still feels homesick...lots of mates from Uganda/ghana/nigeria/Kenya. The whole issue really interests me, i have strong feelings about and its whole other debate for dialogue in real time! I did dislocate my shoulder in BC in 2003 and was checked over by an SA guy in Lyton BC. During the 'flesh on instruments' shit-storm in Vegreville the guy on TV taking the rap was an SA doc too!

if I was close I would visit...geselskap would be lekker....

Cheers

I went out yesterday (opening day) with my two fine bird dogs .. 5 1/2 month old mini schnauzer puppies. Lots of birds around (this is Southern Alberta - maybe 35 minutes north of Lethbridge - by that abandoned farm ...) lots of coveys and after a few one sided firefights .. I managed to make it home with my six birds.They are lots of fun to hunt - you'll like it ! I reckon.

Good stuff!!!

I am looking forward to it!

Waiting for the after action report.

quote:

Originally posted by scruffy:
I managed to make it home with my six birds.

Did they up the bag limit? I thought it was five....?

Frans

Daily limit in Sask is 8 .

/

Oh, Birds. Here I thought you guys were picking on us Germans again.
Grizz

I would like some info on upland bird hunting in southern Alberta if anyone would be willing to help me out. It would probably just be me with my dogs coming up to hunt. I've heard there are good populations of Huns with Sharptails available too.
Thank you.

I think 6s are a helluva lot better choice for huns than 7 1/2s or, god forbid, 8s. There IS NOTHING 7 1/2s or 8s can do to a hun that a load of 6s won't do in their range and 6s can kill them a HELLUVA lot further than smaller shot. This especially applies if they've been hunted much or it is windy and they are jumpy, and one of those conditions applies most of the time up there.

In addition 6s are far better for sharpies if you care to shoot the stinking critters.