2009 - Year in Review

These Guys Is Good Folks

Hilarious video. The ending is the best part.

Two Weeks: Texas, Day 2

Chuck's friend and son had gone home the night before, and the other folks planned on running some puppies, so Wes and I were going to hunt on our own. The previous day we had found birds where a road crossed a creek bed and hunted the creek one direction; we planned on hunting the creek the other direction.

We got a late start, and with some wrong turns on the gigantic lease we saw more than we planned. By 11am we were ready to put Ike on the ground. At the motel I wrapped his feet in vet wrap in anticipation of putting duct tape on top of that, to help cure the footsore issues. When I pulled him from his crate I found he had pulled off and eaten most of the vet wrap. Nice. So I re-wrapped him and taped his feet with the most expensive gas station duct tape I've ever bought. I have Lewis boots for him, but his front feet are larger than his rear, so I need to get another set for a more comfortable fit; I've actually never had to use them before.

The weather was much cooler, probably around the freezing point when we started, and there was a nice breeze. We started in the direction where we found birds the previous day and planned to loop back across the road the follow the creek in the other direction. Doing only walking this day, I really became familiar with the hazards of hunting in Texas...everything is pointy and trying to stick you...jumping cactus is the worst. There must be some sort of chemical on the end of their spines, because they poke through your brush pants like hypodermic needles and the sting lasts for a while. Leather gloves came in handy negotiating the cover.

As we hunted up the creekbed, Wes is credited with the first find; a covey erupted from the base of a mesquite tree as he walked by. He opted to watch them down instead of trying a rushed shot, and we did get some birds up; can't remember if we had dog work or not.

We circled back across the road and found this...

I'm thinking "now we're in business." But, it turned out to be a nice buck. Not the first time it's happened, either. Ike made a nice cast in the direction of the deer and went on point again.

This time it was birds. He tried a relocation and some birds went, and here's a video clip of another relocate attempt. I whoa'd him to keep him from putting up what I thought was going to be the rest of the covey. He found them later.



It was wierd. We'd get a point, relocate, maybe three or four birds would get up, and then he'd find the rest of them. I think birds were running from us and the sparse scent of just a couple birds was throwing him off. On covey number three he figured it out without any mistakes. In this picture, he is surrounded by birds; we probably caught them feeding.

Over the next couple hours Ike found four coveys and there was some singles work. One thing I will say, singles are a lot tougher in Texas. The birds almost always run like crazy, and these aged birds wouldn't let you, or a dog, get very close before they'd flush. But the shooting was fast and fun; just as we were finished hunting singles from one covey we'd find another to play with.

We never made it far from the truck and we were able to circle back and get Doc who quickly found a jumpy covey as well. Then, Doc pointed, and during a relocation Ike got in front and pointed. Only instead of little birds, it was a brace of feral hogs that, thankfully, ran in the other direction. After that, we heard some birds calling and made our way in their direction, and Ike pointed them from a good distance.

From there we tried hunting the edge of the bottom back.

And then I found this...

With a long drive home ahead of us we packed it up early and headed home. The Garmin told me that in about two and a half hours of hunting, a footsore Ike covered 21 miles. When I got home I found multiple cactus thorns buried deep in his pads. I was very impressed with his toughness and ability to adapt to the conditions.

Two Weeks: Texas Quail Hunting, Day 1

Last spring I was watching K-State try to put a second lick in a season on KU's basketball team when my phone rang. It was Chuck Wilson, Ike's breeder, dog man, quail enthusiast, and the proprietor of White Rock Kennels, located in Waco, TX. He was calling to check in on Ike as other pups out of that breeding had been doing very well, and he was interested in having a look at Ike for a potential breeding. Nine months later we sealed a date to hunt quail on Chuck's quail lease southwest of Wichita Falls.

My buddy Wes and his setter accompanied us through two days of hunting in Kansas beforehand, and then the two days in Texas. We met up with Chuck and a friend of his, their two sons, and dog trainer Keith Hickham, just south of Wichita Falls. We awoke early and arrived at the lease as the sun was rising. They do quail hunting a little different in Texas and it was pretty amazing to see the material investment. Right now I'm kicking myself for not taking some pictures of the setup, impressive as it was. Before I could even collar both my dogs, Chuck and company made magically appear about 20 dogs, mostly setters, from his trailer and K-Mule boxes. While on the chain gang they took some water in the cool and dry desert air; it was going to be a warm one.

A few minutes later and we had loaded 8 dogs in the K-Mule with Ike and another on the ground. Chuck, Keith, Wes, and myself all rode in the K-Mule while the other three volunteered to walk. At first I figured the three volunteers were eager to shoot some birds, but later I figured out they just wanted to do their walking during the coolest part of the day. Can't say I blame them.

Chuck had only hunted the lease one other time, on the opener, and only managed to move a few coveys of birds. He reported the cover as being thick and very green. This time the cover looked great and I was very optimistic. The K-Mule navigated the cactus and mesquite while we hunted the edge down a drainage. We followed in the Mule about 80 yards behind the walkers, Keith keeping a sharp eye for his sylish dog on the ground, and I for Ike. After a while Ike made what Chuck called a "look and see" cast to the front and over a hill. I was able to rattle off his range using the Astro, "he's over two...now three...approaching four...beyond five...now six..., there's 700 yards..." Eventually he got to another drainage and hunted that down to rendezvous with us again. It was apparent he was footsore from already hunting two days, and with the warmer weather he got put up after only 45 minutes or so. No matter, we had plenty of dogs to run.

The morning produced only a couple coveys despite plenty of legs on the ground; even when we found birds, the hot and dry conditions hampered any decent dog work. When we broke for lunch I had to put on the A/C in my truck, and the high reached a scorching 82 degrees! Sound familiar?

We returned after lunch and loaded some fresh dogs in the K-Mule and decided to look at some new cover--might as well, this pasture was 8,000 acres, so we could afford to be picky. The one thing all the coveys we found in the morning had in common was that they were near water, close to the lowest of the low terrain. So, we used that knowledge to focus our search.

One thing I should mention, out of the 20 or so dogs that Chuck and Keith brought along, the vast majority were less than 3 years old. Neither of them picked up a gun the entire time; it was their complete focus to get young dogs into birds. We all have our motivations for hunting birds, putting in the time, money, emotion, etc. It was obvious Chuck's big payoff is when puppies win, when they put it all together, sort hot from cold scent, point, relocate, hold steady, and the bird is put up and shot. I like to see it, too. I wish I could hunt a puppy every season, just to watch the progress and, finally, the big payoff. There's nothing like it.

Hunting the drainages offered some challenges. The biggest was navigating the K-Mule to where we wanted to hunt. There were plenty of small ditches just a couple feet across, cut by the rains throughout the years. They were deep enough to prevent the K-Mule from crossing, so we'd get to one and end up going uphill until we could get across. However, we did find a larger ditch that we were able to cross, simply amazing machines.

The tactic of hunting the creek bottoms paid off and we were able to move a few more coveys that afternoon, although the conditions remained tough for dog work, and it became obvious bird numbers were well below the norm. As we were riding the Mule we came across an interesting tree with a prickly pear cactus growing out of it.

The forecast called for a cold front to sweep through that evening, and Wes and I were amped for conditions that were closer to what we were used to in Kansas. We would have them...

Documentation of a Shooting Funk

Here's a short video of Ike pointing a single after he had found the covey and we have some other singles work, some photographed below. I was in a bad funk, wasn't thinking clearly, couldn't pick out a bird, all bad mojo. I recovered before it got really bad. I was shooting IC/Mod, and usually #9's in the first and #7.5's in the second for quail. I've since switched to Skeet/IC and standardized on #7's most of the time. Have had great success since making the switch.

Bikejor Video

We don't usually go this fast, but I only had one hand to break with. They like the colder weather much better!

Part VI Videos

I apologize for the poor quality, but these were both taken with handheld point-and-shoot digital cameras. In the first clip Ted films me shooting a sharptail over Doc's point. You can see how well the other dogs backed--we had a total of four on the ground.



In this second clip Ike tallies a nice find, and Ted kills our limit sharptail over him. You can see a secord bird flush as the first is falling.

Part VI: WTF Just Happened?

Note: This trip encompassed 10 days. This post is dedicated to one hunt lasting only 90 minutes. I hope I never forget this particular hunt.

From Lewistown we decided to hunt an area that I found using Google Earth, and posted about earlier in The Gems of Internet Scouting. After a brief hunt that only produced pheasants we decided to move on. We set our sights on a big piece of state land where we thought we'd find sharptails. They had been easy to find, and after frustrating ourselves with huns it would be nice to shoot the gun some more. Up until this point we were only running two dogs down at a time in the interest of preserving our hounds over the long term, and keeping things simple. I also believe that there is a steep curve of diminishing return running multiple dogs. But, the weather was slightly cooler, there was actually a humid breeze, and the land was large and featureless. So in a moment of rushed judgement down went Ike, Doc, and Ted's Dottie and Vegas. "F*** it."

The field was like a table top with the edges falling off into lower pasture land. I followed the edge of a ridge and Ted stayed to my right, bisecting the field as he walked. Doc was off to the races, but I could follow him with the Astro as he hunted beyond 400 yards. I noticed the grass seemed to have been planted as it was in tight rows. After a few hundred yards with no action I thought that even the sharptails would now elude us. And then it started. Bird busting one, two, three at a time here and there. The wind was at our backs, and the two bigger running setters each ran beyond these birds. After a few wild flushes the temptation became too strong and Ted dropped a double. I think that is when it started.

We reached a fence and opted to circle back around to the truck. Ike made a long cast down the fence line and established point. Doc saw and hunted towards him and birds broke as Doc crossed the fence. At the end of the fence we turned right back towards the truck, into the wind. It wasn't long before we saw this in the distance ahead...

Ike instinctively honored, as he has since he was a pup, from a hundred yards or more. As I went beyond Doc's nose Ike probably started creeping, but I didn't notice. I cleanly killed the sharptail and as Doc attempted the retrieve Ike rushed ahead in search or more birds.

Then all hell broke loose.

Ike would point, and Doc would bust the bird. Then Doc would point, and Ike would bust it. We lost several birds like this. All the while I'm screaming at the top of my lungs in the wind, trying to get to the e-collar transmitter, or the camera; it was pure madness. Doc and Ike, in their competitiveness, even stopped ignoring the e-collar on the light setting, so it went up. This went on for what seemed like a while, but was probably only five minutes. Right there we ended up having a harsh training session on "whoa." I have never been so red-faced in the field before. My voice was hoarse. Even now my blood pressure goes up just thinking about it--I was so angry. The most frustrating part is I knew that both of them knew better, and they chose to ingore me, and for that the "team" suffered. Frankly, I felt embarassed in front of Ted.

Eventually the dogs put it together and we were able to finish our limits with good dog work. We even got some video that I'll be posting later.

Not bad for a short walk under the Big Sky...

I'm not sure why I took this picture; I wasn't particularly pleased with either of these no good butt sniffin' bird bustin' biscuit eaters.

Now THIS is a gaggle of birds. Count 'em, six sharptails in one hand!

We unceremoniously posed for pictures, put the dogs up, and cleaned birds only trading a few words between eachother. Then we sat on the tailgate each sipping a cold brew. I think we were both reflecting what just happened for a few minutes, and I broke the silence with "that was the most stressful limit of birds I've ever shot in my entire life." Ted agreed.

Really Really, Really Ridiculously Good Looking!

"Sage, Ike, over here! Who are you wearing?"...."Ike, show us Blue Steel!"..."Sage, when are you going to drop Magnum on us?"...the public attention has been almost overwhelming! Last night I caught a paparrazo digging through my trash.

You're probably wondering what the heck I'm talking about...last summer Garmin (a Kansas City based company) released news that they had been developing a new GPS device that allowed hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts to keep track of their hunting dogs via a handheld device. I had the opportunity to be one of the field testers, priviledged to playing with the unit before it's release for sale to the public. Recently, Garmin released the second generation of the portion that goes on the dog. This time, Sage and Ike got to take part in a photoshoot for the newer version. You can go to the Astro's minisite at http://www8.garmin.com/astro, and click on the "bird dogs" section to view the various media. Sage can be seen in the "Getting Started" and "Image Gallery," and Ike is my movie star in the "Video" section.

Here's Ike showing his "letigra" pose, which a little softer I think. He uses it mostly in post-hunt hero shots, as well as shoots taking place in tropical settings, like in the Sports Illustrated: Bird Dog Swimsuit Calendar.

On a serious note, we all had a great time working with the folks at Garmin; they're all top-notch. I'm sure in the future I'll have some reports or reviews about using the Astro with the new DC30 collar. I also plan to use the data we can gather to try to learn more about how our dogs cover the ground, how weather or small injuries or terrain can affect their run and productivity. We also stand to learn something about the birds we hunt...the terrain they're more likely to inhabit during different times of the day, population density, and much more. This fall in Montana there will plenty of opportuntiy to do so.

Wild Birds in Motion

I've only been hunting for seven years, over dogs for six, and only over my own for three now--a relatively short span. So, I've taken heavy preference to using wild birds to train my dogs, as opposed to more formal training with liberated or planted birds. The latter carries with it the much higher probability that the inexperienced trainer could make a mistake that creates a significant setback in a young dog's training.

Also, after hunting with someone new, I get to puff out my chest and answer "yes" when asked if I've trained my dogs myself. Little do they know, as this really proves is that I'm capable of driving my dogs to the birds, and keeping my mouth shut as we look for them. The birds do the rest.

Here, Sage points a hen pheasant during a spring run in central KS:



Taken on the same day, Ike also finds a hen, and Sage is honoring.



You can clearly see the difference in style between Sage and Ike, and I think their respective breedings play the biggest part in this. Sage came from a breeder in the northeastern US, and is likely intended to be a "grouse dog," whatever that is. His lines also have much closer ties to European dogs, which explains his tendency to crouch low, or "set" when on point. On the other hand, Ike was intended to be a field trial dog, and it's no secret the trialers like a high and straight tail.

Sometimes it's fun to have someone else flush the birds for you...



Anyway, I hope to get many more clips like this later this fall.