Fourteen hunters hid tucked away in a 50-foot long blind brushed into a fencerow of a seemingly endless Oklahoma milo field. A large grey cloud was moving our way. But this wasn't a rain cloud. It was an enormous flock of sandhill cranes.

Bryan Baker yelled, "take 'em," and the roof of the blind flew open. An intense volley of shotgun fire ensued. When the smoke cleared a half-dozen cranes laid lifeless in the field. As we gathered them up, I paused for a moment to absorb the immense size of these birds, which are known to be one of the best tasting wild game animals hunters have the privilege of pursuing in North America. Many refer to sandhill cranes as the "ribeye of the sky."

Sandhill crane hunting doesn't take place across the entire country. Missouri does not allow crane hunting. It is popular in the Central Flyway where hundreds of thousands of sandhills migrate from North Dakota down through Texas. Only two states east of the Mississippi River, Kentucky and Tennessee, allow crane hunting.

Although sandhill cranes are large birds, with an average weight of 10 pounds and wingspans up to 8 feet, they are not easy to hunt. They have incredible eyesight and typically fly too high for passing shots. Hunting them takes real know how that involves aggressive scouting and large, realistic decoy spreads...