Hunting Dog

WIDGEONATOR post from the Litter Box

WIDGEONATOR said:

Something doesn't sound right with this whole situation. First of all, most of your birds should be falling either in, or on the edge of your decoys. Second, I understand that birds will flare off of your dog, but I don't see how you guys are burying your dog so they can't see the birds fall. My dog would flip his lid, if I even attempted to force him to not watch the birds.

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WIDGEONATOR,
It is fairly obvious you don't hunt the heavy cover areas on refuges in the north of the state. First off often times the dog is hiding inside a ten foot high tule patch with you. The dog's field of view is limited and basically only what is above the tule patch - not much lateral field of view. So the dog learns to watch the direction of the gun barrel to mark the bird. Second, once the dog is out after the bird often a 20 yard shot falls on the other side of a tule patch or in thick smart weed/watergrass/etc. Hand signals are not possible unless you move to where the dog can see you. Many times birds don't fall straight down from the end of your barrel, so if the bird sails only a couple dozen yards he may be separated from the dog's "mark" by quite a bit of cover making the dog's sight and sense of smell near useless unless you have the right wind or you manually reposition the dog. In thick cover it is not uncommon to have to move off your tule stool and help even the best of dogs. God forbid you sail a bird a 150 yards in thick cover - you could have the second coming of Lean Mac/Rascal/Barracuda Blue & Super Chief - you're still taking a long walk. :yes:

WIDGEONATOR said:

I was standing on the edge of my club yelling at my dog to get out of the tulles, so he could help me go find the bird when all of a sudden, he pops out of the brush with my goose!

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Yup, I learned that lesson as well. My first lab taught me that lesson on our first waterfowl trip. He was was 8 months old and forunately I had plenty of time to work with him. He was a bumper and pigeon finding machine out at Point Edith by the time dove season rolled around. Opening day at the Lodge I dumped a greenie and I knew exactly where it was - but the dog went elsewhere. I got pretty hot and ran over to get him, just as he came out of the tule patch with Mr. Mallard. Lesson learned, his nose trumped my eyes from that point forward.

Funny story on that dog. He went deaf, or almost, at age 14 (hunt until Nov of 15th year). I used to take a white cloth with me to make hand signals easier, but in thick cover I just let him work. Often I hunted with friends with younger dogs as well as my old boy. Often their dogs would bring the bird back out of heavy cover first. I'd just wait on the "beast", he'd always come back 5 or 10 minutes later with a crippled greenhead. He didn't know the difference, but he did know how to find birds. :thumbsup: