Hunting

A couple of weeks ago I went bird hunting in Montana at the invitation of Dave Perkins. A gracious invitation to say the least, and one that offered up a most notable new experience. This was different. Standing on the ridge I looked across a sea of grass with mountain islands here and there, and the distance defined only by the last jagged range in the distance.
“How far are those?”
“ About 120 miles.”
“Damn.”
I was hunting sharptails near Great Falls. Next-door neighbors are calculated in miles. It looks flat, but it’s not. It rolls and dips and rises like ocean swells and not until you get out of the truck and immerse yourself in it, do you discover the detail, the variations of terrain and vegetation, the places where sharptails find cover.

Come autumn, I have the best job in the world. As a bird hunting guide for PRO Outfitters in Central Montana, I spend 28 days a month with my dogs walking rolling hills under a big sky, looking for wild sharptail grouse, Hungarian partridge, and ring-neck pheasant. My dogs are ideal co-workers: every morning their eyes light up when they see me, and they can’t wait to get to work. Bird hunters know that few things compare to the bond you share with your dog in the field. And nothing compares to watching your young pointing dog gain confidence, put the pieces together, and finally “get it.”

Ever since Orvis began selling guns in the early 1970’s, when we introduced the Orvis Wingshooting Schools, we’ve offered custom-fitted shotguns along with our completely handmade side-by-side shotguns. The custom-fitted shotgun program, unique to Orvis, provides the shooter a gun built to the shooter’s individual measurements. These measurements are taken by our skilled gun-fitters to insure your gun fits your specific build perfectly and, most importantly, shoots where you point.