Cocker Spaniel - A great dog for working a ruffed grouse out of thick cover

Friday afternoon I was able to slip away with my 10 year old daughter Sarah for some ruffed grouse hunting. She was happy to be out with her Dad and I was tickled to have her to myself. (Truth be told, I think Mom was glad to have the kids seperated for a few hours. Tell me, why are they such a pleasure one on one, but just want to fight when they’re together?)

Sarah and I took Luke, a bold little male cocker spaniel that we have been working with out for his first experience on wild birds. We were hunting him with Allie, my seasoned female lab. I was excited to get this little brush-buster hunting wild birds. It wasn’t long before Allie got into birds. Luke was right there with her. What I loved about this little dog is his ability to thoroughly work tight cover (and look cute doing it). I’ve never been able to hunt over a cocker before and loved the experience. I think you have to look carefully for the right breeding to get a game hungry cocker like this one, but if you can find one, they are a pleasure to hunt with.

The two dogs put up a handful of grouse for Sarah and I and despite the thick cover, I was able to put one of them in the bag. Needless to say, we had a ball on our daddy-daughter date. We did have to spend a while after we got home combing the burrs out, but it was worth it.

11/22/09: I have had several calls about hunting cockers since I wrote this post. I have now had luke out after pheasants and grouse and thoroughly loved hunting with this dog. The following comment came from Gail Workman about Luke:

From: G L Workman
Sent: Nov 19, 2009 8:13 PM 

There are only a handful of breeders who are breeding the American Cocker for its true intent: as a sporting dog. Luke is owned by Sharon Pearson and bred by Gail Workman. Here is a little history of Luke’s background. 
In 1995, the first “Master Hunter” titled American Cocker was CH Petts Southwest Breeze, CD, WD, SH, MH (Ruby). Bred by Elsie Scolaro and Anne Noble, Ruby was owned, trained and handled by Trish Jackson of West Falmouth, Massachusetts.  In 2001, Trish Jackson bred, trained and handled the first cocker spaniel field champion in almost thirty years, a Ruby daughter, FC Madisons Pride and Passion MH, sired by Bazils Stylish Pride JH SH.

Gail Workman, who also breeds field Cocker Spaniels, trained and handled the first VCD3 American Cocker earning advanced titles in obedience, tracking, agility, and hunting. OTCH Knights LIttle Kelly Girl VCD3 TDX AX AXJ WD SH (Kelly). Kelly was bred to the first male cocker to earn a “Master Hunter” Pudg’gee Ann’s Heart and Soul MH (Spunky) who was bred, trained and shown by Bob Linehan of San Deigo. From that litter Gail kept a red male Kelly’s Cruisen Legacy (Cruiser) who was trained and shown by Gail Workman earning his UD, TDX, OA, OAJ titles and was shown to his Master Hunter by Bob Linehan.

Trish Jackson bred FC Madisons Pride and Passion MH to Gail Workmans Kelly’s Cruisen legacy VDC2 TDX OA OAJ WDX MH. From this breeding came Lukes Sire: Madisons Blackland Prairie Rufus SH WDX (Rufus) owned, trained and shown by Elain and Buck Grabowski.

Luke’s Dam is Six of Seven CDX, NA, NAJ, WD, SH (Six) . Six is an old fashion cocker with no background in hunting, Gail purchased Six to add a new line i.to the small gene pool of the field bred American Cockers. Six is now working towards her Master Hunter title.

As Chris said it is not easy to find a game hungry cocker like Luke. However, that being said, I could recommend all the breeders mentioned above to get a true field bred American Cocker.

Thank you, Sharon, for giving Luke an awesome home and for sending Luke to Chris’ to get his hunting training. Having worked with Chris myself, I know Luke is in good hands!  I could not be more proud of of Luke and all the hard work Sharon has put into raising him.

As for chukars, all the reports I am hearing are really good. All the spring and early summer moisture really seems to have boosted production. Folks I have spoken with in several places around Utah and in northern Arizona and Nevada are all reporting the same high numbers of chukar chicks. I am excited about this hunt.

I was able to take advantage of the light snow so far this year and Utah’s new extended blue grouse season the other day and get out and shoot a limit of duskies. Most years by this time the high country is locked up with snow and the season blue grouse season closed at the end of November.  It was still a long hike in and once we got to the highest elevations where the grouse were there was six to twelve inches of snow. Some of it was hard enough to walk on; otherwise it was post-holing all the way.

Sometimes late in the season once there is snow on the ground the blues have all taken to the trees and you don’t flush any from the ground. When this is the case I’m sure you walk under a lot of grouse and they just hold still and let you walk right by; those that do dive out of the tree tops, usually from the backside going 80 mph downhill. They make for a very sporty target.

This time I caught about half of the birds on the ground and half in trees.  The highlight of the day was when Lilly, a young French Brittany I am working tracked and retrieved her first bird, a bird I barely hit through a narrow window in the pine boughs. I watched Lilly work down the air-born scent cone along the flight path of the bird, and then disappear over the edge. She showed up about two minutes later with a big cock blue grouse in her mouth looking very proud of herself.

 

 

A limit of ring-necks, prairie chickens, sharp-tail and a bobwhite. What a day.

It was a spectacular weekend. We got our first snow of the year. In the higher country we received about 4” of wet snow. My guess is that it will all melt off within a few days though. The aspen leaves were spectacular. Blue grouse populations seem to be down in my usual spots. I had a hard time coming up with a limit this weekend. It was a beautiful day though. The aspen leaves made it worth the effort.

 

 

One of the things I was able to work on while camping over the fourth of July, was hunting the dogs through forested cover where they quickly loose sight of you. This is as real is it gets for training a dog to hunt forest grouse. This poses a different scenario for a dog that’s use to training on open ground where they can run big and always see you, and you can see them.

While hunting grouse, a dog needs to learn to read the direction you are hunting and anticipate where you are at all times and how to hunt for you when they can’t see you. The other thing they need to do is learn how to find you when they have lost you. They need to learn to circle around and find and follow your scent trail to find you, check in, and keep hunting.

I worked with each of the dogs hunting out through the forest. At first, I would call them back often to me and let them know where I was, especially when I changed directions. Over time, I gave them less and less direction and notice of my location and let them work to me. When they checked back in, I would praise them and cast them off again. Several times during a session with a dog, I also would hide behind a tree and watch while they were out away from me. I wanted them to learn how to circle back and pick up my scent trail and work it out and find me. If they were slow coming back or having a tough time finding me, I would call out their name with a short, quick yell, so they would perk up and have incentive to keep looking, but would have a hard time triangulating my location just from my voice. All the dogs picked this up fairly quickly and would find me using their noses. I think this is critical in a grouse hunting situation, where the cover is fairly thick and they loose sight of you quickly.

We also ran across several grouse roost piles, which got us pumped for the season. We didn’t see any birds, but that is because they were at a much lower elevation with young broods. We were high enough to still have patches of snow, which the dogs loved. We are looking forward to the fall and grouse opener this year.

 

 

 

 

For the Memorial Day holiday we got out and scouted for ruffed grouse. It’s a beautiful time of year to be out, things are greening up and the early spring flowers are coming out. We saw elk everywhere we went. This time of year the ruffed grouse are drumming and a little easier to find. The thumping of their wings against their puffed out chest carries amazingly far. The other thing about it is that it can be deceptively hard to pinpoint. If you are able to locate them, they are sometimes easy to sneak up on to within 20 or 30 yards so you can get a great show as they strut their stuff on a log. They are really awesome birds to watch. I was able to locate six or eight of them in a morning. This fall they won’t be on the exact log, but there is a good chance that there will be some in the area.

 

We got snow down to the 8000 ft elevation level yesterday and a freeze down to 5000 ft over night. What does this mean for the blue grouse? Blue grouse are interesting critters, in that they migrate in the reverse direction of everything else. They come down to the edges of the pinyon-juniper zone, around 7000’ to 8000’ in elevation. Early in the season look for these birds, especially the broods lower in the drainages and riparian area. (The young are by far the tastiest!)

The adult males seem to start their migration much earlier, just after breeding they seem to start drifting by toward the high country, whereas, the hens and broods seem to spend more time lower down, then begin their movement upward as it starts to cool off and grasses start to cure out. A hard frost kills off the forbs that they are focusing on, and they begin moving to the high country in earnest. Once all the forb leaves have withered and the berries have shrunk and fallen, and the insects are gone, they switch to eating exclusively pine needles. By this time you should be looking for them in the dark timbered areas near the very top of the mountain. Another tip is to look near edges and steep slopes. These are fairly heavy birds and to escape, they like to be able to flap a few times and bail off an edge where they can glide several hundred yards away from danger and safely hide in a dense pine tree.

So, with this first snow and frost look for these birds to be moving higher in elevation. When you find birds, take careful note of the location, habitat (both ground cover and overhead cover), distance to edges, and time of year. There is something these birds like about that spot at that time of year, and year after year you are likely to find them right around that same spot at roughly the same time of year.    Good Hunting!