"A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step." ~ Lao Tzu
Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,
This will be a short Gadabout. Today begins Woodcock season here in Wisco. There is a lot of foliage still up on the trees and getting a shot at a woodcock today is pretty much a forlorn hope. We never saw or heard one. It's also been very dry and the woodcock migration may go elsewhere this year.
We did flush two Grouse (Grice?) today though. The second video I got is kind of good. The first flush today is not a very good video and I'm not going to waste your time with it but this one is kind of fun. Rory has seen grouse before and Jeff Hintz gave me some grouse wings to get him used to the scent.
This intersection of trails out on the property across the road from the cabin has had birds in it before. They can hide in the cover yet see and hear all around them there. Note how we are walking along, Rory stops and looks to his left and the bird flushes. He knew that bird was there. Gotta love good progress towards making him a flushing grouse dog.
“No one appreciates the very special genius of your
conversation as the dog does.”
Christopher Morley
Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,
As I reviewed these videos, editing them, I realized Mr.
Morley had nailed the vapidity of my canine conversations. The Rorz, being all Golden Retriever,
don’t care.
This is another hunt training Gadabout.Birds actually were harmed during the making of this,
so if that triggers your outrage, please go read something else.
Grouse and Woodcock season start Real Soon Now
and I had a huge hole in Rory’s training.Abandoning procrastination, I bought some birds for
him at Coyland Creek yesterday and we got a chance to work together in a
controlled field environment.Mitch, the
owner, is really great guy and I’ve been making my meager addition to his bottom line for
about 6 years now. I ordered 4 pheasants.
Asking him to mark where he planted the pheasants, he did better than
that.He said, “Follow me on out to the
East Field and you can watch where I put them.”I wanted as much control as I could get over Rory’s first birds and how
we approached them. He marked the planted sites with yellow police tape. Cue ominous pheasant danger soundtrack.
OK, so they weren’t really Rory's first birds.All this summer in training, we’ve given him lots
of dead birds to retrieve.He’s even had
two freshly shot birds in NAHRA tests.But this is different.This is practicing the whole hunting "script"
from waiting quietly in the truck while I gear up, to leaving the truck under my
control and being obedient in the field.It’s knowing when to quarter and when to sit and stay.Finally, it's seeing me carrying and using a
gun.The whole magilla.
I had planned to make him sit about 30-40 yards from where I
knew the birds were planted and I would walk up and flush the birds, giving Rory time to mark the fall for the subsequent retrieve. Unfortunately, pheasants, even farm raised pheasants, are wily and duplicitous. Two of them easily defeated my strategery.
As I geared up and watched Mitch plant the birds, one hen got
away from him. I blurted out a word I hang my head in shame over, but,serendipitously, she flew over towards
Rory and I and landed in the fringe grass maybe 50 yards or so out in front of my
truck.I noted the spot, finished
gearing up and heeled Rory over towards Mitch as he drove back out of the
field.That’s what this short video is
about.Telling Mitch he doesn’t have to
make the bird good yet. ( As you watch these videos, if you will click the maximize window and go to settings to get the 1080 dpi level resolution. )
As Mitch drove off, we heeled over towards the deduced Galliformian grassy lair. As we neared it, I sat Rory and continued on intending to complete the flush, mark and fetch process.
It didn’t work out that way.I failed miserably in my assigned task, so I brought Rory over and he did a really great job of getting "the nose" and flushing
it.Here’s the video.
Flush with success, we turned south into the East Field to train on the other
three planted birds.Sadly, the wheels
continued to fall off of my brilliant plan.The first two pheasants totally didi maoed and we
never saw them.There was long grass to
our right and an almost fully grown cornfield next to that and I think that’s
where they ran.Rory got the nose on
the second and I let him spend about 10 minutes beating around in the
tall grass and in the cornfield chasing the trail.No bird.
If you look closely at the video, Rory is soaking wet from the wet tall grass. My pant legs were wet up mid-calf. The temperature was near 60 degrees which can really quickly overheat a running dog, so the cooling wet grass was really welcome.
We had more luck with the next marked site and that’s the
last video.In it, you will see me walk
up to the tape at the ready. No bird. I call Rory up; he finds the spot where the Rooster
was planted and does a pretty credible job of trailing it down.I make a pretty good head shot and Rory does
a really great Started fetch.
So, Rory made two really good finds and flushes and two good retrieves. He got to trail another bird and it's too bad he didn't find it. He knows what a hunt is and he likes it.
