Orlando Game Farm

 If the day comes when a flight surgeon tells me I can't fly anymore in high-performance
 jets, I can always sneak out back and fly ultra-lights.  .... You do what you can for as long as you can,
 and when you finally can't, you do the next best thing.  You back up but you don't give up." 

~ BG. Chuck Yeager

Hero shot!

 

 Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

This Gaddabout is another story about hunting.  If that bugs you, please go read something else.  

That quote really hit me when I read it back in the 80s. Training Rowdy and then Rory has been my Yeagerish retirement hobby.  Rory just about used up all his heat tolerance today.  I came close to overheating him. I won't make that mistake again.  Note the huge tongue loll in the picture. 

Back to the story. I've been promising to take my nephew to a game farm for at least a year.  I recently discovered the Orlando Game Farm just east of Miesville, MN.  I like the Miesville area and go there when I can.  It's home of the Miesville Mudhens and King's Place Bar and Grill.  If Jack Ruhr Field and the Miesville, Mudhens weren't the model for Field of Dreams, then they could have been. King's Place slightly beats out the House of Coates as the best burger place in MN.  But I digress. 

Orlando Game Farm does not have a website and appears to thrive on word of mouth so I can't link you to them.  You will have to rely on my meager descriptive skills.  A really pleasant family operation, Orlando Game Farm treated us great.  We bought 6 birds and they put them out for us with a flag to mark where they were planted.  While this may seem like cheating, I wanted to work on Rory whistle sitting and staying steady to flush until I released him.  We were about 50% successful on steady.  He retrieved every bird and we even got him to deliver to hand for Jackson instead of to me.

I made the nephew wear the GoPro hoping to get good video from a different viewpoint. Sadly, I've a got a problem that I don't understand and the GoPro failed to record.  It may have overheated.  The upshot is I don't have any videos and we should have captured some great ones.  I'm bummed. 

Quick overview, Rory or Jackson found 5 of the six birds and shot all we flushed.  Sadly one was only wounded and escaped.  I will play a video of the escaped bird in a moment.  I made Jackson schlepp the birds in his brand new Orange vest.  It's good to be the old guy....

We made our way back to the truck, hid the hens because farm purchased hens make a poor hero picture and arranged the two Roosters on the tailgate.  Then Jackson watered Rory. 

Jackson waters Rory

As I said, the next to last bird we flushed got away from us.  Jackson emptied his gun and feathers flew but the Rooster kept on truckin'.  I stood and tried to note where it flew, while whistle sitting Rory.  He's getting better and he remained steady until I heeled him up.  He was also getting really hot by this time. 

We went to the truck, emptied and stored the guns, watered the dog and took the hero pictures.  Then we closed up the bed, got Rory into the air conditioning and drove the short distance up and to the right to look for the wounded bird.  Sure enough, we turned the corner up on the top of the hill and there it was out in the freshly cultivated field just laying there.  I thought it was wounded enough it couldn't fly any more.  

We cogitated for a bit and I decided Rory had one more retrieve in him.  So, we got out of the truck and Jackson videoed us doing a blind retrieve.  You can tell how hot the dog is by how slow he is to obey.  Normally, he'd run as hard as he can.  But we flailed around and got him out next to the bird.  And that is when we learned we should have gunned up again and walked out there.  You'll see what I mean when you click this video.  

So, I think Rory got some experience, we reinforced some training and generally had a good day.  Met the great guys that run Orlando Game Farm.  (Why the road it's on is named Orlando in corn country in MN beats me...) 

Takeaway: I will not ever schedule a game farm trip when the forecast exceeds 60F.  It's just too hard on the dog to run that long in that heat.  I hang my head in shame.  ...and let's not talk about a wounded bird that we didn't harvest.

On that bittersweet note, I remain, 

Dad/Geoff

 

Rory wins two ribbons today!

   "The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win." ~ Bobby Knight

Proud Rory Hero Picture!

 

 Coach Knight got it right.  Rory and I have been working on today's success on a daily basis for months now.  But I digress.

Ann, Rory and I loaded up in the truck at an ungodly hour this morning and drove up to Ogilvie, MN to Pheasant Ridge Shooting Preserve to run in a NAHRA Upland Test.  In all honesty, the video I'm about to show you is pretty lack luster, but I am as proud of it as I can be.  Your mileage may differ.

There are two categories to a NAHRA Upland test.  Working Upland and Senior Upland.  We tested today at the Working level.  I am in awe of the guys who have their dogs up at the Senior level.  Maybe next year! 

Today's tests required Rory to meet a higher standard of training and performance than we've ever managed before.  

I'll explain those requirements as I bloviate my way through today's blog.  Ann followed us throughout the test with our GoPro and captured the video I'm about to show you.  As you watch the videos, please click Youtube's settings gear symbol and set the quality to the highest level and maximize your screen.  It's much better that way!

The two Judges, DickO and Terry are guys that I really respect for the dogs they've trained and the things they've done for Four Points Retriever Club. 

The first event is called a "Hunt-It-Up Test".  The judges hide a recently killed bird out in the cover somewhere.  Neither I nor Rory knew where the bird was hidden.  We are given a starting place for me to heel Rory over to and tell him to start hunting. On a different note, every retrieve in this test series requires Rory to "Deliver to hand" which means that Rory has to hold the bird for me until I take it from him.  The other tests we've passed were Started tests and all Rory had to do was to deliver within a "Reasonable Distance" which is much easier.

I have been working with Tim Springer's Do It Yourself program since last summer and one of the things we've been concentrating on is "Obedient Fetch" and Deliver to Hand.  I'm pretty proud of where we are and yet we've still got some firming up to do.  Rory went full k'nuck and had a little difficulty giving up the bird to me today.   

If I may digress yet again.  I've got Rory to a pretty solid level of obedience when it's just him and I in the backyard working together.  Or, out working in public with garden variety distractions going on.

An official NAHRA test is another whole kettle of cliches.  There are people and dogs everywhere, the excitement level is ramped up for everyone, there are guys with guns and birds, there are judges with clipboards...and it's just a fun whirlwind of distractions and controlled craziness that tests your dog's obedience like no other time.  Tests...well....they test you and your dog.  

If you watch the vids critically, you can see how distracted, excited and driven Rory was and how difficult it was to get him back into an obedient mindset.

We settled down at the start point, I told him "Dead Bird" and then "Find It!"  We've been "backyarding" "Find It!" and he knew exactly what to do.  The wind was blowing perfect and he found it right off and came charging back to me. 

Then we heeled over to the starting point for the next event.  

This next event is two fold.  An Upland Hunting Test consists of Rory "quartering" in front of the judges, the shooters and me for a set distance.  Then I get to heel him up and we "Walk Up" on the bird flinger and the shooters.  The perspicacious Gentle Reader will note the shooters and bird on the left side of the screen.  You can also see Terry signal them to release the bird.  Rory has to remain in heel until I send him to retrieve the bird.  He did really well on this one!

Then we had to quarter over to the next live flyer site.  This video is really kind of boring but you can see the bird guys reloading the flinger with a new bird for the next dog as we walk by.  You can also see the thicket out in front of us where we'll be for the next video.

 

 

This next video is the last event.  We did a Walk Up on the shooters through a thicket.  I had some trouble keeping Rory in heel and I gritched at him too much.  But we got through the thicket and Rory marked and retrieved the last bird pretty nicely.  Then he got all gnawy on the bird and I had to do some handling.  But it all worked out in the end.  

 

 We earned two ribbons today.  The Test Chair combine this weekend's tests on Saturday because of a forecast big blizzard.   So there were two simultaneously running tests going on.  Which is a really great testimony to our Retriever Club can do attitude.  It also added to the level of distraction and chaos for the dogs. I forgot to make sure Ann had the GoPro, so we did not get any video of the second test.  

 

On the second test, I concentrated much harder on making Rory heel, sit and give and I thought was much better.  

So on the happy image, I remain, 

Dad/Geoff

My second bird...

 I am proud to have been born in Iowa. Through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy, it was a place of adventure and daily discoveries - the wonder of the growing crops, the excitements of the harvest, the journeys to the woods for nuts and hunting, the joys of snowy winters, the comfort of the family fireside, of good food and tender care.- Herbert Hoover, 31st President

 Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

This will be the last post about our trip to NW Iowa.  It will be short.  I have what I think is a really good video of Rory and I working together to share with you.

We got word that there were birds seen just up the road from Ryan's place in the ditch.  So, we drove up, gunned up and detrucked.   Brandon and Ryan crashed through the large cover to the left side of the road and Michael plunged down the embankment and started wading up the narrow ditch on the left side.  

A side note.  The alert reader may be concerned that I remained up on the road.  In many states, hunting from a road is not legal.  I checked Iowa's laws and I think I'm good.  Your mileage may vary.

I thought it was obvious that the birds would be in the bigger cover to the left, so that's where I encouraged Rory to go hunt.   I was wrong.

In any case, Michael flushed a large number of hens and roosters out of the narrow ditch on the left and I went into wing shooting fugue.  I don't recall mounting the gun or snicking off the safety but I do recall thinking that in this situation I'm confident it's safe to shoot and I'm not trying to catch up with the birds.  I even had some confidence I'd get a double. 

I had no idea where the bird fell because I was going for the second higher bird.  You can see that I was behind the second bird when I shot. 

Rory came up out of the cover on the left and I wondered exactly how I was going to talk him onto a bird I didn't know where was.  But he must have marked the fall, because he confidently dove into the far ditch and by the time I got over there he had it found.  

I think the video of him retrieving it to me is really nice and I'm proud of him.  It's not a perfect obedient retrieve - Michael distracted him with a shot up the road to our right - but it's pretty good.  

That was my last bird of the day.  By then I was worn out, so I did a lot of driving to the blocking position for the rest of the day. 

The last thing I want to brag on Rory about is that he is really good with other hunters.  He spent the rest of that day quartering with the other three guys and finding birds.  He delivered to hand for them and just did a great job. 
    

 We wound up bagging 9 birds that day.  I think Rory found and retrieved 6 or 7 of them.  To get him to sit still for the picture, I gave him a bumper.  He still wanted to go run some more.

We filleted those birds out and I got a lot of the meat.  That was very generous of the guys.  Ann and I plan to make a big pot of pheasant wild rice soup for the annual Winter Solstice family party.  

On that happy note, I remain,

Dad/Geoff 

ps, As I was proof reading this, Michael called to say he enjoyed the earlier posts.  He also said that he and the other guys took their sons to that same intersection this last weekend and got lots of birds.  Way cool!

Geoff Busts his Bucket and then Recovers

 

The best part of falling is getting back up again. ~ David Belle

 

Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

 In case it's not obvious later, I'm going for self deprecation in this post.  ..then I'm gonna try for uplifting.  As always, you are the judge of my success.

My brother, Mark, used to love the phrase "bust your bucket."  I'm kind of fond of it, too....

Basically, I tried to work my way down a steep road embankment, my age and infirmities proved unequal to the task, I overbalanced and busted my bucket.  I've got the video to prove it.

 Okeydoke, here's the rest of the story.  Really close into Le Mars is a very nice plot of land that bottoms out in a meandering creek.  Michael identifies the plot by the name of the owners, but I want to avoid that so I call it "Pheasant Bottom".  Pheasant Bottom was our last hunt last year and there were birds everywhere.  Michael scouted it again this year and saw lots of birds. 

So, we decided to try again with four hunters and Rory.  It's a big, sprawling property with lots of room for the birds to run, so Michael, Rory and I were going to block and Brandon and Ryan went up to the far end for a two pronged push down into the area most likely to hold birds.  

After we got out of the truck and got all gunned up, Michael asked me - pointedly - if I wanted help down the embankment.  Pridefully, I declined and moments later got my hubris rewarded accordingly.  I had every intention of somersaulting out of the fall, but age, agility and an earthy hump at the bottom all foiled that plan.  I hit like a sack of cliches on my left chest and shoulder area and was immediately concerned about cracking a rib. 

Michael came down the embankment and helped me back up.  I rallied and started walking down the right side of the creek, doing my job as blocker.  The whole time, I'm assessing the damage.  Except for a few minor pains, I feel remarkably good for an aging fellow and I thankfully continue hunting.  

Way out in the distance, Brandon and Ryan are bouncing up a lot of birds.  None are flying in my direction, but Michael is over on the other side of the creek and up the hill a hundred yards or so.  He gets a couple of shots.  This gives my plenty of time to overly focus on my ribs....

The GoPro captured my honest thanks to the Lord for letting me get away with being really stupid.  With some trepidation, I'm sharing it with you here. 

Here comes the uplifting part.  Not soon after that prayer, a rooster jumps up out of the cover and I make what is quite simply the best wing shot of my life.  The GoPro captures it in a video I'm quite proud of.  I love how I kept the gun moving out in front of the bird.

One could get all metaphysical about this sequence of events.  You go ahead and do that if you want.  I'm just proud of the video and humbled by the chain of buffoonery on my part that preceded it.

As a side note, that night, the pains increased.  It took about a week for the bruising inside my chest to abate to where I could sleep comfortably.  I'm doing really well here a week later.

I let the bird lay there in the field - I could not and did not want to cross the creek to go over to it.  Rory was way too for away with the other guys and never marked the fall.  We have not progressed in his training to the point where I could blind cast him to the bird.  I really missed Rowdy for this.  

When I start back training Rory in January, blind casting is one of the skills we are going to work on.  

So, I waited while Michael, the other guys and Rory to walk out the rest of the creek bed to retrieve the bird. They heeled Rory over until he was downwind of it and then completed the retrieve.  It was pretty anticlimactic.   I've got video but I won't subject you to it.  It's boring. 

So that was my first bird of the day.  In the next post, I got my second bird and Rory made a great find and retrieve to hand.

Until then, I remain,

Dad/Geoff

 

 

Le Mars, Iowa

 

  "The secret of success is not doing what one likes, but liking what one has to do."  

~ Thomas M. Barnes

 Recently, I had a really great weekend with friends, family and Rory down in NW Iowa.  The next couple of posts are going to talk about this trip. 

Katester's BFF and college roommate makes her home in LeMars, Iowa in the farm country where she and her husband, Michael grew up.   

Every summer they bring the kids up to the cabin and we all have a great time knocking around the lake and the Wisconsin Woods.  Michael and I go trap shooting if we can.  He's great, intelligent, fun guy to be around and I enjoy his viewpoint on a wide variety of subjects.

Every year about this time, he and Brittney invite us down to stalk the wily pheasant in the lush farmland around Le Mars.  I look forward to it with relish.  

On the way to Le Mars, you pass within a few hundred feet of a towering land mark.  Hawkeye Point, the highest spot in Iowa.   

Hawkeye Point, the highest spot in Iowa.

As one drives by Hawkeye Point, the attentive will look around and wonder: "How, 'zackly do they know where the highest point is?  It has to be measured in fractions of an inch.  Plowing and raising clods must change the location...."

On a really sad note, last year's trip was Rowdy's last hunt. I wrote about it here. 

Rory had to stay home last year.  He was no where near a gun dog yet.  We spent the time since then making him a better hunter and there are posts all through this blog about his progress. This trip was the culmination of the work we've done together and I'm looking forward to telling you about it.  But first and overview of the area. 

In my humble opinion, Le Mars represents everything that makes America great.  Farming requires a successful attitude and a society that rewards success.  You have to grow the crop, produce the product and get it to market.  There aren't many examples of layabouts there.  It's a place where your efforts get rewarded. 

Evidently, the Kelley family is a leading example of this with the Blue Bunny Ice cream story.  Starting with a dairy operation long ago, they exanded into butter and then ice cream.    

Which leads me to the picture I'm going to share with this post from the exact center of downtown Le Mars. 

 

 

Now that I've got that discussion out of the way, I can start talking about how good Rory, Michael and his friends did at stalking the wily Pheasant.

On that happy note, I remain,

Dad/Geoff 

Rowdy is Gone

  "Death isn't failure.  Not living is." ~ Dr. Bernie S. Siegel

 

We lost Rowdy this year.  I've been putting off blogging about it because, quite frankly, it hurts.  He was way too young.  At the age of six doggie years, he developed Splenic Cancer and Ann and I put him down at Pilot Knob Animal Hospital.  This happened back in June.

I wrote about him all through the last 8 years or so of this blog. Training him was my retirement hobby. I would say it was a vast success for both he and I.

Rowdy lived every day of his short life with the gusto and verve that Field Dogs bring to everything they do. He was a truly great Gun Doodle and lived to find birds.  

I miss him every day.  

On that most unhappy note, I remain, 

Dad/Geoff

Hunting Gary's Place Year Two

  "Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." ~ John Wooden

 

 Gentle Readers and Loved Ones.  I'm about to tell you about the most successful 30 minutes I've spent with Rory.  

Michael has a special relationship with a land owner we call Gary.  Gary has a nice little farm with a creek bottom splitting it.  The cover in the bottom has just been crazy with hens and roosters these last two years.  Gary evidently only lets Michael and another friend hunt his land and the birds are unpressured, dumb and plentiful, just the way you like 'em.

It's a big plot of land with lots of room for the birds to run away from you down the creek cover.  Therefore, it really needs a blocker at the far end to have a chance to harvest the leakers.  We decided that Michael and I would would walk the cover and Brandon would drive up to the far end to block.  We waited for him to make his way up there and then we started out.  I took the right side of the cover.  Rory started doing a really nice job quartering back and forth between us, crossing the cover and the hidden creek bottom, frequently.

On the right side, I could see birds up a couple hundred yards away, running toward the far end and Brandon.  

The attentive reader will note that I have not yet mastered wearing the GoPro on the hat band mount I have.  

The GoPro Hat

I have the camera tilted much too low and totally missed a good part of the action.  Still, I'm running with the video I have.  Please make sure you have your sound turned on and recall that you can click these video links, expand out the size to see them better and control the quality of the video with the gear icon.  

We had walked about 3 or 4 hundred yards when this bird pops out.  It looks like I bagged him, but I did not.  The wounded bird fell on my side of the cover after both Michael and I shot.  I missed.  

Rory comes charging across the cover and sees the wounded bird running for the cover.  I love the way he grabs it before it can enter the cover.  Once they are in cover, wild pheasants have a much higher chance of hunkering down and getting lost to die in peace.   

Now, we have an interesting situation - it's why I chose the quotation to lead off this post.  Rory is not yet as well trained as Rowdy was, but 

"You go to war with the Army you have." ~ Rumsfeld.  

Rory normally would retrieve the Rooster to me.  But at the same time, he thinks gunshots mean another bird is down.  As he comes back to me, Brandon - way out in the blocking position - starts shooting at the bird di di mauing away from us.  Rory's confused.  Does he bring the bird to me? ...Or go fetch the new one?  Does he drop the bird he has?  ..or try to get both in his mouth?  I'm going to have to work on that a little because he ignored my "heel" command for a while.  

Finally, he delivers the bird to hand.  I sound miffed but I'm really pretty proud.  This is Rory's first time with multiple hunters and real live birds.  He did great.  

Not soon after that, Michael jumps a second bird.  

Again, I'm sorry I did such a poor job mounting the camera to my head.   But if you look along the top of the video, you can see bird flying away.  

Now we have the same story, Rory has a bird in his mouth and there is more shooting.  Brandon down the way and suddenly Michael gets his third bird.  If you listen close, you can hear, "Got my limit!"  But this bird is wounded, running and Rory still has the second bird...

 The video at this point gets too long and muddled to edit and tell a good story.  The camera is still terribly mounted. So...to make a long story short, Rory runs around excitedly, bird in mouth, and finally crosses over and gives the second bird to Michael.  Brandon continues down the wash and joins up with us.  He saw where the third bird ran into the cover and hid.

We spend about 15 minutes crashing around in the cover, trying to get Rory's nose on the third bird and failing miserably.  There were so many birds in that cover that morning - soaking everything with scent - that finding a wounded bird is almost impossible... although we did find a blood trail and Rory really showed interest in that.  I'm really sad we did not recover that third bird. 

So, in about 30 minutes, we flushed a lot of birds - probably close to 20 between the three of us and shot three of them.  Rory retrieved two.  That's not bad for Rory's very first wild pheasant hunt.

We did note where many of the birds that escaped went to up in the terraces and adjoining draws but their dots were pretty agitated by then and we never got close to them again. 

For the next story, I'll tell you about "busting my bucket", getting up and making the best shot of my life. 

On that happy note, I remain, 

Dad/Geoff