Took the pup up to PA this past weekend for early season duck on Friday/Saturday, and opening of small game Saturday afternoon.
The duck crew knocked down 6 woodies (1 of which dove on us and we couldnt get it back), 3 mallards, and a black across the two mornings. Almost had a GWT take our heads off, but we couldnt get guns swung on it fast enough. Dog had a nice blind retrieve on two of the woodies, and marked the other woods and mallards fairly clean.
Saturday's pheasant hunt was pretty amazing, all considering that I've never worked the dog on upland before. Knocked down 22 pheasants between everyone who came and went in the hunting parties that day, in addition to my first grouse (the particular shot on that one was extremely easy compared to most people's reports on how grouse move). Dog marked most of the birds through some decently high brush, which was nice to see an improvement from Friday. In addition to that, she was the only dog we had for the first few hours of the upland hunt, and was learning on her own to sniff out and flush the roosters. About 6 or 8 beautiful hunt-and-flushes, and she retrieved 18 of the 22 chickens on the day.
Extremely proud (and well stocked) pappa here!
(for legal clarifications, we had about 13 people come and go through the day on the upland hunts - 100% legal on limits and such)
Anyone else have some good luck over the weekend?
The duck crew knocked down 6 woodies (1 of which dove on us and we couldnt get it back), 3 mallards, and a black across the two mornings. Almost had a GWT take our heads off, but we couldnt get guns swung on it fast enough. Dog had a nice blind retrieve on two of the woodies, and marked the other woods and mallards fairly clean.
Saturday's pheasant hunt was pretty amazing, all considering that I've never worked the dog on upland before. Knocked down 22 pheasants between everyone who came and went in the hunting parties that day, in addition to my first grouse (the particular shot on that one was extremely easy compared to most people's reports on how grouse move). Dog marked most of the birds through some decently high brush, which was nice to see an improvement from Friday. In addition to that, she was the only dog we had for the first few hours of the upland hunt, and was learning on her own to sniff out and flush the roosters. About 6 or 8 beautiful hunt-and-flushes, and she retrieved 18 of the 22 chickens on the day.
Extremely proud (and well stocked) pappa here!
(for legal clarifications, we had about 13 people come and go through the day on the upland hunts - 100% legal on limits and such)
Anyone else have some good luck over the weekend?