The Honeyhole

As promised, we met our newest friends at a roadside cafe on a minor road off the Interstate. After a few minutes of chatting, we loaded in to 3 vehicles and drove for hours along roads I wouldn't normally even walk. The crystal clear, blue sky contrasted with the light brown of the dried-out hills stretching to the horizon. Under that backdrop, we found Gambels Quail, Scaled Quail and 4 new kindred souls. Ruby picked up another Scaled Quail. Ace added Gambels Quail to his list and Cap tried with the heart of a champion, but came up dry.

And that is all I can say about that.....

Tomorrow, we are on our own.

Three to four coveys per day...

My local friends leave their dogs in the kennels and don't even hit the desert. Not worth their time, they say. Back in Georgia, three to four coveys per day is a good day, anymore. I'm OK with it and we are having a blast! Of course, the sand spurs, and thorns through the pads are making it tough occasionally, but this is what quail dogs do. We are careful and take all the precautions we can.

All the dogs are experienced and are working well, individually and together. No pups on this trip. It makes me appreciated the value of having three broke dogs to play with.

Today we are moving the operation over the mountains to Truth or Consequences, NM where a friend of a friend will put us on Gambels. We will get acquainted with the habitat, etc. Super secret location tomorrow,so I may not even blog in the area.

Stay tuned.....

Local Cafes. Gotta love them!

Arrival..thank God! Hello, New Mexico....

What a trek! In the old days, I could do this 1000 miles standing on my head! Snow, temporary confusion, map discombobulation; all contributed to a long drive. It took a while to get all the buffoonery of the first day organizing complete, but everything is charged, watered, filled and loaded, marked and stored.

The dogs have been here often and are bouncing like ping pong balls. Now, the big question! Who is up first? Me, I go with seniority, which happens to be my best dog up front, Ace. This works well, because having him pee on my leg when I return from the first cast without him is very embarrassing.

The banging on the motel door is an indicator that my hunting companions are ready for the chase. Stay tuned!!!

The Usual...January trip snow..

It seems inevitable. When I start packing, the weather is unseasonably warm. But, when I turn the nose of the diesel West, then the cold and snow arrive. Many times over the last few years, my January hunt has started with a "Winter Event" at the farm. In the past, I have pulled out of the driveway with temperatures in the teens, snow falling, or black clouds signaling a mean storm just over the horizon.

Pound Puppy

This is the best retriever I've got. I don't even know what breed she is. Probably, part poodle. She is 22 pounds of fierce protector! I am really tempted to take her out and put her on Quail.

We used to have a West Highland white terrier. She would wait until my Brits went on point, then she would run in front of the dog and pick up the bird and bring it to me.Stella has that streak in her,also. I know people that use Cocker's as flushers and retrievers. Maybe that's the way to go.

Field Trials or Bird Hunting......or both?

Bo, Field Trial and Hunting Champion

Judges ready for the trial.

Hunting Woodcock

I do both, but, at times, it's a real pain.  After hunting Montana and Idaho for 2 weeks, I will come home and turn the dogs loose in a field trail.  It's hard on them to go from being semi-independent and using their heads to produce game, to staying in bounds, listening to the whistle and surrendering a lot of the independence.  The birds smell different, the setting is different, they are leashed a lot more and expected to be 100% perfect immediately off the line. Yep, it's tough.  However, the good ones make the transition quickly and easily.  With a little preventative training, you can make it work, if that is your cup of tea.  Many guys figure, "Heck, I'll just hunt my dog and not fool with all that." or "I'll just field trial every weekend, where I know the terrain and game.  It's much safer and predictable!"  I prefer to do both, but it's not without it's hazards.  

Typically, the hunting dog will come back in to the trial grounds "loose", meaning he's not as staunch and may even move on birds after the point.  Or they may not pay a whole lot of attention to the whistle, or they may run by birds you know they should have smelled. Usually, all these problems can be addressed before they ever leave the hunting area.  I will ensure my dogs continue to back the other dog on point, no matter the terrain, etc.  I will insist they turn when I whistle, and retrieve all the way to hand.  I insist they are staunch on point and do not let them, ever, chase birds.  In other words, I hunt them like I train them!  That will keep the small adjustment problems from growing in to huge problems in the field trial.  Notice, I've not addressed any problems going the other direction, from FT to Hunting? That's because the problems are usually small and self-correcting.  For example, most FT dogs won't get out and range 400-600 yds ahead- more than that if game is scarce.  But that is what you want them to do to locate the birds. After an hour of hunting, you will see them start to head out more and more, until they are making long casts, just like the big boys. 

Yep, it's tough to do both.  But, the rewards are great and field trials do extend the hunting season, which was the original intent...

The Barn Room

Most of us have some place we keep all our bird hunting stuff. Mine is in the barn. When we bought this place, a huge pole barn made for the beef cattle he raised on this place came with it. I had a pad poured and, while they were re-modeling the inside of the house, I built a barn room with the idea of storing all my hunting and trialing gear. Not fancy, I have power and heat, through a fireplace and a propane wall heater, and I have AC with a wall mounted unit I salvaged from and old rental house. It suits my needs. I have all my electronic training gear plugged in and hunting clothing hung up. The old refrigerator holds drinks and frozen birds for training. A couple of recycled couches and lots of hanging NSTRA trophies complete the "outdoor" look (as my wife would say).

One big consideration I discovered is mice. They really like to make hunting gear into a nest for more little mice. One time, I pulled on a foul weather top I retained from the Navy and a mouse ran up my arm and out the sleeve! My wife still laughs at the time I "squealed like a girl"...not that I did, but I let her have her fun. To combat them, I put traps out and even, very carefully, place rat poison in places I'm positive dogs will not reach. (This worries me. Be careful about it!) About every 3 years, I need to re-treat the room to keep the little critters in check.

Where is your "barn room"?

Take a New Guy Hunting!

If our sport, or better yet, passion, is to grow and be available for generations to come, we need to introduce young people to the sport.  We need to inspire and encourage them to be the good stewards we try to be.  The principles of fair chase, gentlemanly conduct in the field, the idea of "the horse, the saddle, the man" for a priority of actions- all these must be taught.  These principles are not normal or common in many parts of the country and world, unfortunately. 

Ace and Daisy Pointed, Rhys looking for Woodcock

I've always maintained I can tell a lot about a man (or woman) and whether I really want to maintain a relationship (professional or sporting) after bird hunting with them for a few hours.  All the baloney is stripped away and one can see the real person pretty quickly when chasing a bird dog through heavy cover or over a wheat field, etc. 

Shlepping through Woodcock Cover

The best way to instill those values is to take the younger folks out with you and let them see YOU model the good behavior.  Along the way, you will be amazed at the opportunities you will have to talk about everything under the sun.  A great way to pass down some important learning and influence the follow on generation.....



Ace Pointing Woodcock- bird is just visible!

Ruff Tough Kennels

A great solution. They are much better than Airline crates. More internal room and they have optional hardware to lock them together. The gates open either direction and the have an option to have the gates on both ends. Shown is the Intermediate size (not Medium) and is plenty big for dogs up to 50#. They say larger dogs can use this size. They have a nice video on the website. Roughtuff Kennels.

Merry Christmas!

Thank you, my friends! Merry Christmas!!

I Slipped His Collar....

AZ on Gambels- What a tough dog!

Rooster....somewhere.

Bo and Me, ND, many years ago

Jeff, my vet, came to the tailgate while I held the old man in my lap, not unlike the picture above. Not a whole lot needed to be said as he slid the needle in the vein.  That was probably a good thing, since right about then my allergies seemed to kick in and my 62 year old eyes started to water a bit. Jeff said something I missed, patted my shoulder and left me to ponder the blue sky, bright sun, and left-over leaves on the oaks. Back in the barn, I let all the dogs sniff Bo, and then took him to the cemetery out in B Field and put him with Ruby, Rocket, Peaches, Gritz, Duke, Charcoal and Shuga. Getting to be quite a pack out there! 

Well, I don't have much in the way of wisdom and the older I get, the less I tolerate flowery words that say what simple ones will.  He was a tough, smart, bird hunting fool and a survivor.  He should have been dead a few times in his colorful career, but showed up alive and grateful days later. He was not handsome, but won anyway.  He wasn't a fighter, but had game. He was my 'go-to' dog for 10 years.  He was my buddy.

 http://www.abirdhuntersthoughts.com/p/my-bird-dog-story-bocephus.html 

Maybe now I can finish his story.

It's Gettin' Time, Bird Dog.

I left the kennels a few hours ago. Not in the best of moods, I wondered why? I know myself well enough to know that I, occasionally, will be testy about something not evident; something I heard, saw, or experienced in the last day of two. I've been reading Mike Gaddis' book "Jenny Willow" and thought maybe that had done it. Bob Bertram recommended the book to me and I connected pretty quickly to it. I told him I was tired of reading books where the dog dies, e.g., Old Yeller style and he assured me that was not the case here. He was technically correct. I'm sure he's still laughing! But, no, the power of the book rests in the connections made between the reader and Ben Willow while he ponders his new dog, Jenny, and his life spent focused on chasing Ruffs in the West Virginia Mountains. While it is a powerful book, it was not the root cause of my unease.

No, I came to realize, it was my old Setter, Bo. He was whelped in 1999, won the QU National Championship in 2001, and a NSTRA Championship soon after. Hunting every species of bird I could get him near, he covered the country with me. Some birds he mastered, some he worked with yeoman persistence, but all of them were pointed with a quivering intensity that rarely came up dry. Old Bo is 14 and, like Ben Willow said, it's the rear end, the motor that drives the machine, that gives out. He's past having a hard time getting up. He's real close to not being able to get up. He's not in pain, I don't think, but he's very close to not being able to get in his heated dog house, or make it to the food bowl, or relieve himself. He's pretty much blind and deaf. And he's ready to go. "Turn me loose, Boss!" he says when I scratch him behind the ear.

Yes. I guess I should.

Keeping the Dogs Tuned Up and Ready

I like the National Shoot to Retrieve (NSTRA) format for field trials.  It seems to keep my dogs tuned up and ready for the field.  Here is a little video I shot over the last weekend.....oh, by the way, my little Ruby placed on Saturday and Cap was #2 High Point Dog for the day, as well.  Enjoy....http://youtu.be/AdAbXRvHiBU.

Here's another website that may interest you:  www.georgiaregion.org   This is the website for the local Georgia Region of NSTRA.

Does your Sunday Small Group do this?

 

I got back from the Dakotas just in time for Sunday service.  "Hey, how was the hunt?", "Pretty good, but pretty cold at times. Lots of very nice folks up there.  Man, they gotta be tough!" "Well, we've been thinking.....".  The next thing you know, Rusty has 100 birds and 700 acres and we are meeting at the cabin one Saturday morning.  My dogs, fresh off a two week hunt, are more than ready and I rotate through them all morning and in to the afternoon.  By and large, the shooting was abysmal, including mine, but the dog work was awesome and, at then end of the day, we harvested a bunch of birds.  It was a great way to get outside and acknowledge that God made men (and women) as the apex predator.  And, he made men flinty hard to be leaders and conquerors, and doers- strong in his Word and in defense of their families.  It seemed a far cry, out there, from the amorphous wimps we are told by our modern society we need to be.   We had fellowship only the hunt could foster and, best of all, we had a boatload of fun!  When you give thanks tomorrow, ask yourself, "Who am I thanking?"  I think you know who I'll be talking to. Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!!

How to get heat and cooling to the back...quick and easy!

After last week's 8 deg temps and 30 kt winds in ND, I pondered a way to get some heat back to my bird dogs. I put a 26" bicycle tire between the sliding windows, inflated to seal the gaps. I closed the windows on the topp

er, turned up the heat in the cab and drove to workout. Like I hoped, the Venturi effect sucked air from the cabin back to coach...er, the topper..and the temp rose significantly in the 10 min drive to the weights and torture devices. So, I know it works, but how well and in what temps, etc.? Does it cool well enough in summer? Stay tuned.

Rear Cab Window and Front Topper Window Open

Whining....

So, I'm sitting around eating breakfast in North Dakota one morning. I overhear, about two tables down, a group of hunters talking about how things are going. One guy says, "I don't know what happened to him. Last I saw, he was packing up to go home." It was generally acknowledged that this hunter's presence would be missed. So, I listened little more. Apparently, the guy let his dog out of the motel to go to the bathroom. It promptly ran out into the road and was killed. What were the odds that would happen way out here in West Bethlehem, North Dakota? Not real good....but, it happened!  Heck yeah, I would be packing up and going home, too. In fact, I would be devastated.

Here's my problem. After having my dogs accosted by someone else's dogs in the same motel, I am wondering, "what is so hard about putting your dog on a leash?"  And, I know this is going to really get me in hot water, it seems like Lab people are the worst. Now, I know that old Rufus is the best trained dog in the entire world. I know he would never chase a squirrel, or a duck, or a cat, or a ball, or anything else out into a roadway. And, I know he is smarter than all of Congress combined. But, I don't want to meet him at six in the morning when he runs right into me and my dog, who is on leash. Even if he only wants to play. And especially, if he wants to bow up and fight my male.

If you want your Labrador to be spread all over the interstate, feel free to let him out at rest stops without a leash. Just, please do not do it when I am there.

Now, before I start getting hate mail from all you Labrador owners out there, I hasten to add that, in fact, I do know at least one Labrador owner that leashes his dog. But, he drives a Prius.

I love labs.

End of an Era

More than 10, and maybe 15, years ago, we found ourselves down in Southwest North Dakota knocking on doors and asking to hunt pheasant. It was tough, since most of the land was posted. A few farmers did let us hunt, and it was spectacular. But, overall, the land was all tied up. This was the home of fee hunting. I will never begrudge a farmer for charging to hunt on his land. To my mind, if the farmer puts in food plots, the birds are a crop just like corn.

But, at the end of the day, we were tired, cold and a little frustrated. The next day, after the same thing, we went to New England and found the café in a bowling alley. It was warm, had good food, and we met a lot of nice people. In fact more than once we had invitations to hunt private land from people we ate lunch with. We met a lady who allowed us to stay in one of her rental houses, hunt land of farmers that she knew, for a very reasonable price. So began a tradition that stretched over at least 10 years."Bowling alley for lunch?" was the refrain after a few casts in the morning.

And now, here I am, looking at a closed up bowling alley. A for sale sign on the door and a forlorn look to the whole building. My friends tell me that there is a little drama involved here. Isn't there always?

We have the hottest economy in United States right here in North Dakota. Oil money and oil workers are everywhere. 3000 oil wells have been drilled. 30,000 total are expected. CRP land is vanishing. And, with it, the pheasant.

A local bird hunter told me,"Randy, be sure and come the next five years. After that, it may be the end of pheasant hunting around here." I hope not. I will miss the gravel roads, the ditches, the CRP, the rooster climbing into the sun, the retrieve by my dog, and, more than a little bit, the bowling alley.

Hunting a North Dakota "Weather Event"

They don't even call them blizzards anymore. In North Dakota, they are called major winter weather events. With the right clothing and a good attitude, bad weather hunting can be very enjoyable. My LL Bean Hunting pants were waterproof, windproof, and very light. I did not even wear long underwear. My Orvis wool Elmer Fudd hat, or something like it, was absolutely mandatory. Wool and Gore-Tex about seven layers deep, constituted the upper body wear. The only weak point in my system Is my gloves. I wear Orvis deerskin hunting gloves. I don't like thicker gloves because they don't have the touch. I was right on the edge of being too cold on the fingers. In fact, I may have to change my gloves. I am still looking for a suitable pair for cold weather.

As far as the dogs are concerned, the weather really did not bother them at all. Even Ruby, who is the skinniest of them all and went through the ice into the creek, came up and hunted like a champ after that. I watched her closely and she was doing just fine. Another problem you may encounter, is keeping the dog water thawed out. I took care of that by putting the container inside the truck. If you're gone long enough it will freeze. But even at 8°, we had no problem.

I would not want to hunt in this weather daily. But the occasional storm provides a lot of opportunity. We found roosters clustered together in shelterbelts and in the cattails.

Clean a Pheasant in under 30 seconds!

Click here to watch the video! 

http://youtu.be/FKlQxOwKwbU

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Randy and Ruby