Reminiscing about the hunt before heading home

Saturday morning dawned cold and snowy here in Idaho. A perfect day for hunting pheasants. I thought about ruffed grouse, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to track wily roosters in the snow. As it turned out, the day warmed up and by early afternoon there wasn’t any snow to be found. The wind however, kept the birds flighty and made it challenging.

I have been working with a young Brittany and thought it was the perfect time to get him on wild birds. At times he ranged out farther than I wanted, and blew through several pheasants and a whole flock of huns, but by the end of the day he came through for me, producing a plump young rooster that held fairly well in a thick covert along a stream.  We put a lot of miles on for that bird, but he was worth every bit of it.

American brittany and ring-neck pheasant

photo

I had a great opportunity this afternoon, I was introducing a young Brittany to birds using pigeons when I heard some huns just over the top of the hill, so I took the dog just around the knoll where he would crest the hill close to them and directly down wind. It worked well. We topped the hill and the dog got birdy, followed the scent and found the birds. What surprised me was how many huns there were. We got about 25 huns up in three waves. It really got him keyed up. To tell the truth, it got me keyed up. There is nothing like training on wild birds.

 

I am looking forward to this hunting season with Annie. She is a nine month old American Brittany we are training. She is coming along really well in her training; she loves to work birds up, has a soft mouth and strong desire to retrieve.

Annie’s one vice is tomatoes. She loves tomatoes. When she gets a few minutes free in the yard she jumps the 3’ fence around the garden, which is to keep the chickens out, and searches for the ripest tomato, picks it and runs under the tramp to eat it. It’s kind of funny, until you realized that she has picked every ripe tomato for the last two weeks.