Shayne and Ishmael took me shooting last Wednesday, as the wind whistled down through the draws and scoured the high plains basin we chose as our makeshift range outside of Cody Wyoming. Having become enamored with the blue-purple shrubs that cover so much of this high land, and having strolled through some looking for vegetation samples and learning how to identify animal tracks, I was looking forward to shooting in sage brush, until I found out that you can hardy see a thing from a prone position. Shooting on the level or downhill through sage brush is infuriating from the prone position, which is your most stable firing posture.

This was particularly irritating for me, for with some coaching, I found out I could shoot moderately well. I ended up switching to a seated position with a bedroll on my left thigh, giving me an adjustable brace for my left elbow by raising my knee.

Shayne and Ishmael told me the following:

A firing stick [like musketeers used in the 1600s] or bipod is very useful in this setting.

Off hand shooting with the long gun is important as no one can really hold the gun perfectly steady while standing and the ranges are greater out west than in the wooded east.

That shooting from a kneeling position is a compromise that might have to be taken.

That sage only offers concealment for a stalking foe, the plant unlikely to protect through deflection.

The overall impression is that sage flats are a dangerous place to engage a numerically superior foe while armed with single shot or slow rate of fire long guns.

Overall, the terrain studies we did suggested that a lone traveler—especially one that hunted as he went—or a small party of individuals, would follow the timber line and draw their water from feeder creeks instead of fallowing the river courses through the bottom lands, using dead falls and rock falls as barricades and firing platforms from which to ward off a closing force.