Choosing Shot Size and Chokes for Sharp-tailed Grouse Hunting

As a new hunting season approaches, we all begin the process of digging through our upland gear. We check over the vests and chaps for tears and holes from last season’s briars, and if you’re like me, find shotgun shells in various pockets or crevices of my hunting gear containers laying wherever it was that they last fell at the end of the previous season.

Looking these items over it brings to mind how we often tailor our gear to the game we intend to pursue. We were thinking of heading out west to chase sharp-tailed grouse but, never having hunted the species before, I wondered if there was a difference in shotgun gauge, shot size, or choke when out in the prairie chasing sharpies versus the ruffed grouse of the aspen forest. A chance encounter provided the opportunity to pick the brain of long-time sharp-tailed grouse hunter: Tyler Webster. The North Dakota native and host of the Birds, Booze, and Buds podcast has been chasing feathers since he was eight years old and has learned a lot during his time in the uplands.