My dog Rowdy and I went up near the Canadian border, in MT for the first 3 days of the season opener. I can tell you that birds are extremely scarce and the covies are small. The first day, Rowdy put in over 24 miles on the Garmin. Early in the day, he pointed a single sharptail that flushed out of range in the 30+ MPH winds. A half hour later he had a stop to flush on a second single. We went the rest of the day without seeing another bird until the last spot we tried, where we hit some really nice looking mix of native grass, sage and snowberry, with some buffaloberry draws. Classic sharptail type stuff and we did find one bigger covey that I scratched out a 4-bird limit on. HIt a double on the first two birds to flush. Missed another bird with my third shot. 4 more sharptails came up while I was reloading. Once reloaded. 3 more sharptails flushed and I shot 2 as they came out like popcorn. A last bird flushed but limited out, we headed back to the truck with a few hours of daylight to spare. The second day Rowdy and I did not see a single bird (except a half dozen pheasant in a draw) until he had around 20 miles on the Garmin. We hit a small covey of what turned out to be only 4 birds and I ended up with a double on them, again on the very last spot we tried, in a different area. Monday, I could tell Rowdy was getting tired, being that it is the season opener and I didn't condition him like I normally do pre-season. He put in 11 miles on Monday and I ended up with 1 sharptail out of a "covey" of two birds. Rowdy was pretty much done after doing 59 miles in 3 days of hunting. A day off and he would have been fine to go again. We did not see one single hun, which was surprising. The game warden who checked me on Sunday told me that the area had a severe drought, followed immediately by record snowfall last winter. Between Rowdy being gassed and not wanting to beat up already struggling birds, I made the decision to drive the 8 hours back home. It was a fun time. I enjoyed having to work hard for the birds we did get, but bird numbers in MT are REALLY low this year, from what I saw and from talking with the 4 or 5 other people I came across.
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/N4heXssl.jpg)