breachless
Well-known member
Please excuse the long-windedness of this post, but when I am not thinking about fishing, I am thinking about Pheasant hunting. I am actually the guy that HATES it when deer season comes around because that means I can no longer safely go out with my two dogs to hunt Pheasants on public land (don't get me wrong: I deer hunt too, but Pheasant hunting is SO much more fun...)
Last fall we took a trip out to South Dakota for a week and hunted all private land, and it was some of the most fantastic bird hunting I have ever experienced... It was also my dogs first real hunt, and he did AWESOME. If you have never hunted birds on a pointer (Jake is a German Shorthaired Pointer) I highly suggest you give it a shot. I am not ragging on the labs because I have hunted with labs all my life, but hunting on a GSP is quite an experience. He was a natural! It was frustrating at first because the other hunters all had labs, and they hunt much differently... Jake wanted to try to do what the labs were doing and sniff out and flush the birds, but he is just too athletic and nobody could keep up with him. He would dash ahead and bust the field before we ever got close enough and it was terribly frustrating to be the guy whos dog was ruining the hunt.
At the end of the first day, my brother and I decided to go hit a few fields on our own and we just brought Jake, and what a difference it made! Instinct took over when he didn't have other dogs to compete with. 20 yards into the first field, he shot ahead and I was just screaming at him in frustration to come back when the grass stopped moving where I last saw him. We walked up to where he was and there he was in the classic pointer stance. He would glance at me and then look into the brush where he was pointing as if to say "hey man: there is a bird in there... don't spook it!"
So we crept up and started kicking around the brush and lo and behold, a nice rooster explodes out from underneath my feet. It scared the bejeezus out of me and I didn't even manage to get the safety off to take a shot, but I praised the dog and told him what a great job he did. Once I realized that he wasn't so worthless afterall, I just started letting him do his thing: he would go out 100 yards ahead of us and pin down birds and just wait for us. All we had to do was try to keep an eye on where he was so that if he stopped, we knew where he was, and every time he would be pointing out a bird. It was awesome, and so much more relaxing! We didn't have to try to keep up with him so we could just walk at our own pace and let the dog find the birds, and when he did, we could be ready and know we were about to get a shot at a bird whenever he went on point.
I wish I would have had a camera on me to get a picture of him on point: it really is a beautiful thing. What's amazing to me is that they just do this automatically. I work with my dogs all summer long with wings and scents and dummys, practicing sniffing out the birds and retrieving them, but I didn't have to teach him to point. It's just in their blood to do that, and somehow they seem to also know that they are working with YOU to get the birds. Very very cool.
I can't wait for this fall so I can bring the female with as well. I think the two of them would make a hell of a team out on those rolling hills in South Dakota.
Last fall we took a trip out to South Dakota for a week and hunted all private land, and it was some of the most fantastic bird hunting I have ever experienced... It was also my dogs first real hunt, and he did AWESOME. If you have never hunted birds on a pointer (Jake is a German Shorthaired Pointer) I highly suggest you give it a shot. I am not ragging on the labs because I have hunted with labs all my life, but hunting on a GSP is quite an experience. He was a natural! It was frustrating at first because the other hunters all had labs, and they hunt much differently... Jake wanted to try to do what the labs were doing and sniff out and flush the birds, but he is just too athletic and nobody could keep up with him. He would dash ahead and bust the field before we ever got close enough and it was terribly frustrating to be the guy whos dog was ruining the hunt.
At the end of the first day, my brother and I decided to go hit a few fields on our own and we just brought Jake, and what a difference it made! Instinct took over when he didn't have other dogs to compete with. 20 yards into the first field, he shot ahead and I was just screaming at him in frustration to come back when the grass stopped moving where I last saw him. We walked up to where he was and there he was in the classic pointer stance. He would glance at me and then look into the brush where he was pointing as if to say "hey man: there is a bird in there... don't spook it!"
So we crept up and started kicking around the brush and lo and behold, a nice rooster explodes out from underneath my feet. It scared the bejeezus out of me and I didn't even manage to get the safety off to take a shot, but I praised the dog and told him what a great job he did. Once I realized that he wasn't so worthless afterall, I just started letting him do his thing: he would go out 100 yards ahead of us and pin down birds and just wait for us. All we had to do was try to keep an eye on where he was so that if he stopped, we knew where he was, and every time he would be pointing out a bird. It was awesome, and so much more relaxing! We didn't have to try to keep up with him so we could just walk at our own pace and let the dog find the birds, and when he did, we could be ready and know we were about to get a shot at a bird whenever he went on point.
I wish I would have had a camera on me to get a picture of him on point: it really is a beautiful thing. What's amazing to me is that they just do this automatically. I work with my dogs all summer long with wings and scents and dummys, practicing sniffing out the birds and retrieving them, but I didn't have to teach him to point. It's just in their blood to do that, and somehow they seem to also know that they are working with YOU to get the birds. Very very cool.
I can't wait for this fall so I can bring the female with as well. I think the two of them would make a hell of a team out on those rolling hills in South Dakota.
