Hunting Dogs!!! Post your pics & stories!!!

My new French Britt Lillie. Six months old tomorrow and my third French I have had. She is from a new breeder to me and the smallest I have had but the most bird crazy. Also the hardest to train so far but I love her to death, She gives my 6 year old Britt a real hard time :)
Cheers
 
Here's my 2 boys (Chip 8 yrs and Bug 16 months) , this is the first time I hunted them as a brace and but for a few hiccups they did well. We got our last bird about 5 min after this picture during our noon break.

 
For the first time since this pheasant addiction started over a decade ago, I have had to miss the last few days of pheasant season. From the looks of the weather report today, this was a blessing in disguise. I know myself well enough to know that if I hadn't been away today, I would not have had the common sense to pass up on closing day!

Anyhow, knowing that I was going to be away for work, I took last Thursday off and Pearl and I went on a big tour looking for roosters. On my last few outings I have found the late-season roosters to be very spooky, so this time I left my whistle in my pocket, didn't put her bell on, and tried to work into the wind as quietly as possible. It was easy to be quiet last Thursday because it was misty and drizzly - everything was soaking wet. This helped us to move quietly, but also it helped Pearl to work close to me without a whistle because the scent was not carrying well. I also vowed only to take well-presented shots at a reasonable range. In past years, I have let "last day greed" get the better of me, and taken shots at some of those wild-flushing roosters and ended up crippling a few, then felt ####ty about it for the rest of the off-season. I've not lost any cripples this year, and had an exceptionally good year overall, so I made a conscious decision not to allow myself any sort of "Hail Mary" shots at questionable ranges or through screening branches etc...

Pearl was hunting very well on the first cover, but there was no hot scent. As we worked our way up a small river, I spotted a big drake mallard with his hen just dabbling in an eddy behind a rock. I dropped to one knee out of sight, and swapped lead for some nontox shot. In retrospect, I should have snuck within range before trying to close my gun, because the THUNK of the action closing put them to wing - too far for a shot. I left the nontox in and released Pearl from her sit-stay to continue our pheasant hunt. Just as well I had left the nontox in, because 10 steps later, about 10 black ducks flushed from where they had been tucked in under the bank! I tried to ignore the flock and focussed on one nice bird - got out ahead of it and shot. TWO dropped! The "bonus" bird was barely hit though, so I let him have it with the other barrel before I sent Pearl. If it had been my old dog Ruby I'd have let her get after him, but Pearl is still pretty new to the game, especially when it comes to cripples and ducks in general, so I didn't want to risk losing him. She retrieved that one first, and was on her way back when the other one got lively again and swam into the grass on the far side of the river. I cast her across and got her hunting for it. I had to cast her a bit, so it was great to see all our training paying off as she looked to me for guidance. Once she winded him though, she found him quickly in the reeds. I was concerned that might not hang onto him if he was too lively, but she did fine with a bit of encouragement and liberal use of the HOLD command once she grabbed him, and brought him back to me. So we started with a nice bonus of a pair of fat black ducks! These were Pearl's first ducks. Funny - just the week before I had decided to give the pheasants a break and try for ducks and grouse - came home with a rooster. This time, I was trying for my last shot at roosters for the year, and had a pair of ducks!

We resumed our pheasant hunt and worked methodically for them, finding some hens that all flushed beautifully and easily right in my face - big fat brown footballs full of promise for 2016! Great to see them, even if every last one of them did take a crap in my general direction. Also great to see that Pearl did not chase them - she seems to be getting the idea that no shot means no point chasing. Finally she worked a bird in some heavy cover alongside a cut cornfield until he finally flushed - a young rooster with no-where left to run or hide. I got him and she made a nice retrieve on him too, and I tucked him away with the ducks.
For the rest of the day we tried to close off 2015 with a last limit of rooster, but we just could not manage to get a nice clear flush. She put up a total of four rooster, and three more flushed wild, plus another 7 hens throughout the day. I didn't fire another shot though. Those roosters either zigged when I was sure they'd zag, or flushed too low over her and straight away, ducked down over riverbanks before flushing, flushed behing thick screens of alders, and just about any other trick in the book that roosters learn throughout a long season! By two oclock Pearl was starting to look pretty ragged - she had been working at full-blast for 6 hours, and as a result had earned a bit of a nasty scrape on the front of one leg, and around her eyes and nose were scratched up. I could already hear my wife's loving greeting when I got her home "What the &%#* happened to my dog????" Hah! Not the first or the last time I'll hear that! So we called it a day. Just before taking the ramp onto the highway I fished around in my hunting bag and pulled out a granola bar. Pearl heard the rustling of the wrapper and lifted her tired face onto the back of the back seat to see if she could mooch a bite. I laughed when I looked in the rearview, and I saw that she had a feather stuck to her nose, so I pulled over to capture a quick end-of-the-last-day pic!
And so, that's was it for us for roosters this season. What a year! I moved heaven and earth to hunt at every possible opportunity. Burned a lot of vacation time, put a lot of miles on the car, drank more Tim Horton's coffee than I will drink the rest of the year, along with an uncivilized number of Boston Crème donuts (lucky pheasant hunting is good exercise!). When I get back to Nova Scotia I'll have a bit of time left to try for a grouse or two, and hopefully some more ducks. Although pheasants are very much "the main event" for me, we're not done yet!
-Dave
 
here is my new hunting dog, 12 week old patterdale terrier.
i have used these when fell pack hunting foxes and sending the terrier
down the tube for a grounded fox.
these terriers are true warriors and fear nothing.
hopefully she is a true as any good patterdale.

they do look cute but dont be fooled LOL



 
Airedale Terrier
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Well, the holidays were more about snowshoeing an skiing for me than about hunting,



but I did get out for a bit of late-season duck and grouse hunting. I tagged some grouse hunting on along with retrieving treestands and visiting with some hosting landowners to deliver pheasant pies and christmas cards. I fired one shot the entire time - at a grouse that came ROCKETING straight at me through the fog one damp day just before Christmas. I'd conservatively guess that my shot arrived something on the order of about 5-10 feet behind him! He passed about a yard over my head and I spun to follow him with the second barrel, but he zigged then zagged and I didn't get onto him. Pearl had winded him from about a hundred yards away and did an amazing job of finding him in the thick stuff and putting him up for me. So as usual - she did her part! I finally got around to properly exploring some beautiful new grouse cover though, where I heard another two in the thick stuff but had no shot. In the process I found a very interesting bottleneck of deer tracks that might be worth further exploration this fall.



I did take Pearl out for her intro the the mud flats, but it was a calm day and we didn't have any serious takers. My spot out there is changing though - much more slumped mud and thinner grass up on top. It was pretty sloppy! If this continues, and I think it will, my years of hunting out there are numbered. I passed on some shots that would have felled the ducks (assuming I hit them!) into very soft mud on the far bank. Missed another that came straight at me and passed right overhead. I should have shot earlier, but I wanted him to fall on the near bank to make Pearl's first experience out there a good one. But I was too slow, so by the time he came right over me I'd have had to hide him with the muzzle to get enough lead. By the way he flew off after I shot - I clearly failed to do that! After several hours of washing gear and Pearl, I was reminded what a chore that hunt is, and was at the same time reminded not to undertake it unless the weather is snotty enough to ensure more action! But nonetheless, it was perhaps for the best that Pearl's introduction to the big mud flats was on a relatively benign day without much "work" to do. By the time the aforementioned snotty weather arrived, I was away on my ski vacation! Next year... next year...






Take'em and I did get out for (another bluebird day) duck hunt. Once again, the ducks were content to sit where they were on the glass-calm water, and there were no other late-season duck hunters around to keep them moving, so we had plenty of time to shoot the breeze about this year, plan for next year, and luckily for me, to take a few pics! Want to know how to get some great shots of your dog? Take a good photographer out hunting with you on a day when there are no ducks to shoot! Eventually, he'll get bored and start taking pictures! :)





Watching an imaginary double-curl mallard cupped over the decoys...



Casting Pearl to retrieve said imaginary double-curl mallard after having made a spectacular imaginary shot! :)



Still over a week left. Might get out again for a last kick at the can... Still only a handful of ducks in the freezer - it'd be good to have a few more feeds before next fall!


Happy New Year.

-Dave
 
Well, I guess that's it - the fat lady has sung, at least as far as birds go.
I got Pearl out for a number of duck hunts in the Atlantic zone these first few weeks of January. We were skunked at every turn - just never quite hitting the conditions and spots right. There were some birds around, but they were pretty decoy-wise it seemed. I passed on some shots that would only qualify as sky-busting at best, and even let some crows flap on by despite my temptation to crack 'em out of frustration with the ducks.
I also drifted a stretch of river, hoping to jump a few ducks. The only two ducks I encountered were in a straight-stretch, and they saw me coming and flushed before I was in range. But it was a nice afternoon regardless. The slog back up the road in the dark to get the car with waders on was not so nice though!

We got out in last week's rain/windstorm, but the wind died out just as we were getting settled, and the birds stopped moving. I hoped that the dropping tide might get them moving, but if it did, they didn't move my way!


We got out on the last day of the season, but the high tide was at noon and it was a bluebird day.

The local ducks were particularly well educated - hanging out tucked in safely around a nearby residential property. Pearl - ever the sassy jackass - expressed her displeasure about this by repeatedly trying to pull my hat off.

I'd have stayed longer, but when I went out to reset the decoys on a dropping tide, I quickly discovered a significant leak in my boot. This turned out to be a piece of glass, which is a pain for my waders, but better my boot than Pearl's pads - vets are a LOT more expensive than Aquaseal!

So that's about it for 2015-16 hunting! Quite a year for Pearl. She and I did very well together on pheasants. We scratched down a few ducks in the process, but really have very poor success on our directed duck hunts. For the most part, that's my own fault. I was so obsessed with pheasant hunting, and not all that enthusiastic about getting up at "0-dark-30" to slog out into the marsh, that I really didn't give waterfowling my best shot. Next year..... next year........
-Dave
 
Looks like you have some snow, its almost gone here. I'm working Bug on force retrieving which he thinks is a great game , too bad he suffers a bit from canine ADD. :)
 
Looks like you have some snow, its almost gone here. I'm working Bug on force retrieving which he thinks is a great game , too bad he suffers a bit from canine ADD. :)

Yeah - we had a good month (if you like snow) of January, but then lost it all in some big rain events and +12 earlier this month. Last night was a modest blizzard, giving us a foot or so to play with and some more to come this week.

Good luck with the force retrieve training!
 
My dog blue...she's 9, a kennel dog but every chance she gets, up on the love seat. She hates cameras and phones, think she takes after her owner...ears go down,won't even look at one. This is a couple weeks ago after an afternoon hunting, her nose and legs pretty raw from briar, I let her come in for awhile...I think she could be easily house broken.
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Just about ready to do some refresher training for the season. It's happening a bit late because my big boy Bug managed to get a bad puncture between his front toes while ripping around the farm. After $260 at the vet he's recovering nicely but he hates the vet wrap and bitter apple and even no-pick doesn't slow down his licking the bandage. My boys are getting expensive as my old guy is on heart medication so I guess I'll switch from scotch to beer. :)
 
Got some birds locally after my other 2 sources dried up so its time to do some refresher training. It was really wet since it rained in my training location but not in town so scenting conditions were poor but both boys found their birds no problem and got nice and muddy in the bargain. The season starts in a few weeks and we'll be ready ( the boys and me that is)



 
Well fellow dog people. Lost my Harley yesterday, found him at first light this morning. Harley had massive seizures which I only had partially under control. Near as I can figure he had a Gran Mal and fell into huge puddle on a skid road where he drowned. It was quick and he was senseless which is where I am trying to find a little solace. He was five years old and an excellent little hunter. Nothing he liked better. Fearless, when he was a pup tried to check out the chainsaw noise after it fired up. Never a dull moment. As a pup he was tireless and one day when I had had enough but he still wanted more attention. He went up to the bedroom, opened the bedside table drawer where I kept my good glasses. He picked them up in his mouth and came back downstairs at which point he had my complete attention. He opened doors with ease. The medication definitely caused behavioural problems but we got past all that. We are devastated. Too soon gone.
 
Well fellow dog people. Lost my Harley yesterday, found him at first light this morning. Harley had massive seizures which I only had partially under control. Near as I can figure he had a Gran Mal and fell into huge puddle on a skid road where he drowned. It was quick and he was senseless which is where I am trying to find a little solace. He was five years old and an excellent little hunter. Nothing he liked better. Fearless, when he was a pup tried to check out the chainsaw noise after it fired up. Never a dull moment. As a pup he was tireless and one day when I had had enough but he still wanted more attention. He went up to the bedroom, opened the bedside table drawer where I kept my good glasses. He picked them up in his mouth and came back downstairs at which point he had my complete attention. He opened doors with ease. The medication definitely caused behavioural problems but we got past all that. We are devastated. Too soon gone.

He was a nice looking pup... I will knock down a greenhead in the morning in Harley's memory...
 
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