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Hunting Chromatic Snowbirds
No matter when snow blankets the landscape with white powdery ice crystals, it’s prime time for bird hunters to do what it takes to get after those ring-neck pheasants. If this means layering up like the Michelin Man or donning snowshoes, then so be it. Pheasants will seek out those places that offer protection from the elements, for when the heavy snow comes, and flatten sparse cover.
The 2015 Florida Open All-Age Championship
All trialers know how sometimes and rarely things come together at a field trial to produce a magic event. So it was at Chinquapin Farm in January 2015.
A New Grouse Hunter
Sam Scales had just sold his AI Startup to a consortium of Private Equity firms for $1 Billion (his share) and embraced a new-to-him sport: Ruffed Grouse Hunting. He brought to it the same intensity he had to the Startup. He was a math genius with a photographic memory and a control freak, traits that did not equip him for easy companionship. But one trip into Maine abandoned-farm country, where he saw one grouse rise and fall to the shot of his host, hooked him.
Don’t Lose Your Birds
Almost every bird hunter has experienced the desperate disappointment of losing a downed bird. We all have had to walk away. It is not a good feeling when a bird is lost. Whether using dogs or not, knowing that a bird has been shot and the feeling of being unable to locate it is unnerving.
Read Your Dog
Just because a gun dog can’t speak doesn’t mean he’s not saying anything. Reading the dogs’ body language is key for elevating performance levels, so here are some things pro trainers look for when they cut loose their string.
My Invention
I have always been blessed with just the right amount of intelligence to get neck deep into something, but never enough intelligence to get out successfully. This was one of those occasions. It involves two bird dog bitches and a dummy, me.
Losing It
Harry Bain had been an all-age for-the-public pointing dog trainer-handler for thirty years. In that role he had lived in south Alabama, trained trial and hunting dog's mid-July through mid-September in North Dakota and traveled the major all-age trial circuit September through mid-March. Summers he had fished the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere until the last week of June when he readied for the trip north.
Tick Check
When it comes to ticks, the only thing you need to know is that they should be avoided at all costs. Nothing good comes from an association with a tick. They’ll latch on to you, your dog, your wife and kids, your horses, and anything else they can sink their grubby meat hooks into. Diseased ticks can leave you sick for the rest of your life.
DOVES: From the Field, to Cleaning, to Eating
It’s that time of the year when we find ourselves gathered with family, friends, and strangers positioned around a cut grain or sunflower field waiting for those September gray birds to come screaming in. Dogs will sit idly by, panting as they await anxiously for doves to be interrupted in midflight with shot. As the first flight comes in, a barrage of gunfire will thunderously erupt, signaling that hunting season has arrived. Dove hunters will instantly feel the excitement by the heat of expended shotshells, yells from strangers saying “Comin’ at ya!”, and the sweat running down backs and necks as sun rays pour from the blue sky as summer still holds on tightly.
Building the Foundation at Any Age
Most of us know that the best training comes from starting early in a dog’s life. Getting that young pup chasing tennis balls down the hallway is the best way to get that future Master Hunter started on the retrieving journey. But what do we do if the dog we get is a little older, two or three years old, and other than “sit” and playing fetch in the backyard, they have no formal retrieving skills? They are solid with those very basic things, but with no formal training.
Twice Bitten
For a fourteen-year-old, truth can be illusive. In many cases it’s hard to sort out and in other instances it’s just as plain as the nose on your face. I do know one thing that was true; it was well into November, and it hadn’t rained in Amite County since July. The farmers had fed out all their hay and were hoping to get winter rye into the ground before the December frosts, but they needed a rain.
Properly Command Your Sporting Dog
Chatter and over-commanding are two common issues between some handlers and their dogs. For some reason, nonstop talking gives some handlers a sense that they’re in control of the dog. They believe the constant communication improves the dog’s situational performance, and that somehow the chatter motivates pups to cast better or to remain more staunchly on point. But most of those commands fall on deaf ears as the dog tunes out its owner. And when it comes to bird dogs, tuning out an owner is never a good idea.
The Handoff
The year was 1955. Buck Reed had returned home to South Georgia from the war in Europe ten years before and embarked on his career as an all-age handler of pointing dogs as successor to his father, Sam, who had then retired from the same trade, turning his string over to Buck. Sam sadly died a year later of a heart attack, victim of the near universal curse of his generation, cigarettes.
The Hunt Goes On
In the early 70s bird hunting was at its peak in Eastern North Carolina. I was a youngster still and loved to tag along on hunts with family and longed to have my own dogs. It was about this time that I attended my first bird dog field trial, a horseback event being held near my Uncle Henry’s farm. It was there that I first remember meeting Dr. W.C. Sanderson. He was there to compete as was his brother “Dute” Sanderson, a popular local professional dog trainer.
