Gun Dog Forum

Thought I'd post a pic of some of my dogs out for a walk this morning. The brittany pup got some retrieve training to do during the "walk." She is now 7 months old and has just finished her first time in season. At 6 months old that is the earliest any bitch of mines has come into season. The Clumber would surprise many people with the speed he can move at. He is slower, or rather more deliberate when hunting than my cockers are but there is nothing wrong with the speed he can retrieve at.





Bill T.

Good looking crew! Wish I had the space for multiple dogs...lucky!

Trekmoor wrote:

What in the name of Harry Lauder's walking stick is that mug on the right called again?

Gotta love them Clumbers, wullie.

MG

wild looking kool
cc

Awesome pics Wullie!!!!! Love the big bear headed black cocker

Is the dog on the left your Springer? Must be. I never saw a tri color Springer before. Very nice looking!

There are two tri-coloured dogs in the pic. One is my Brittany pup , tri-coloured brits are allowed here as are black and white brits.The other is my cocker Dax, he's a smashing little dog both hunting and retrieving and I think he must be part otter, he likes water even more than the average lab ! His sire is a British Cocker Championship winner as is the sire of "Billy" the other cocker in the pic. The clumber is called "Ned" which usually gets shortened to Big Ned. He is a beginner but a very promising one, everybody that meets Ned falls in love with him .....he is an easy dog to love. He had a few homes before he came here and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to part with him, there isn't a bad bone in his body and he loves working.

I just saw this little promotional film clip and thought some of you might be interested too. It is about the scenery and shooting sports on the island of Lewis off Scotlands west coast . The islands have very few trees on them but the scenery is typical of many parts of Scotland. If I could afford it I'd like a shooting/fishing holiday there myself.

Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 5:24 pm Post subject: Forthcoming DVD

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Here's the official directors cut promo for the forthcoming DVD on Grouse & Woodcock shooting on the Isle of Lewis. Watch out for the Copper cam! http://youtu.be/qTbIY2XwX0M


Bill T.

Very nice. How hard is it to hunt there if you are not from scotland?

Not sure about that Mark, I think you'd get a plane to take you over the pond to Glasgow airport and that would be the easy part of the journey ! Scotland is a small country but it contains miles of nothingness which can make it take longer than you'd think for what looks on a map to be a short journey.
From Glasgow I'd probably hire a vehicle, maybe a 4 wheel drive one to take me to a ferry port to Lewis. The same vehicle could then be used on Lewis although I think the holiday company would use it's vehicles on the estate on Lewis.

I love wild places and wild birds (and even wilder wummin ! ) so I think I'd like Lewis .

Bill T.

Beautiful video.

DonF wrote:Is the dog on the left your Springer? Must be. I never saw a tri color Springer before. Very nice looking!

My apologies Don, when I first read the above I thought you were kidding me on !

There is no springer in the pic. That tri-colour is my Brittany. Here are a few more pics of her, she is 7 months old.





I do train a springer and another cocker and a vizsla but they didn't fit into my car cage and got left at home.

Bill T.

Trekmoor wrote:

DonF wrote:Is the dog on the left your Springer? Must be. I never saw a tri color Springer before. Very nice looking!

My apologies Don, when I first read the above I thought you were kidding me on !

But there are tri-coloured springers - Cass' countrymen the Reiches over at Ruff Mountain Kennels used to produce some stellar field-bred ESS examples: http://breakingcattails.com/ben.html

MG

Wow! That's a cool video Bill! Thanks for posting it... A trip to Scotland has always been on my "bucket list", it just moved up the list a ways & I think I may just make it a hunting one now! 5 years to retirement & counting!!! Love the dogs too... How on earth does a dog know to mug up for a camera shot???

We had a tri colored springer in the 70s. She was my sis's dog.

I meant what does it take like a permit etc. The trip isnt the important part, getting the permit and or permissions to hunt, thats what may be dificult for someone from here. Or am I wrong in that?

Nice looking dogs there.

"Permissions to Hunt" do not exist here. A landowner, who may or may not be a lord or whatever ,owns the land and he can either run his own shooting parties or he can lease the shooting to another group or person. In this instance it looks like a holiday providing company has taken the lease and they then run everything from providing transport to providing guides or dog handlers. If you were to approach the holiday company they would sort everything out from there at an all inclusive price.

I used to guide shooting parties on an estate and had American and Italian and English guests doing the shooting usually. The estate I worked for had the policy of only having a maximum of four guns in a party and very often I took out just one "gun" to shoot over my dogs. The men who could afford that could have bought out Rockefeller ! When I first began guiding I had thought it would be about numbers of grouse shot but that sort of thinking was wrong for shooting over pointers. The bags of grouse were small. A really good day might see 5 brace of birds shot but quite often the bag was only 2- 3 brace for about 5-6 hours of walking o'er hill and dale !

In Scotland there are two main types of grouse moor ..... "driven" and " dogging." In driven grouse shooting (they are all wild birds) bags of up to 1000 brace of birds can be the case .....if you have the money ! Driven grouse shooting is very expensive . "Dogging" moors are where the shooting is done on the move, the cost per bird is less because no beaters or pickers up or "flankers" are employed. I took out shooting parties all on my own so only my wage had to be paid.

I was a guest gun on a driven moor once and the landowner deliberately placed me in the best butt each drive.....he felt he owed me a favour ! I missed nearly every bird , I was rubbish ! Yet I can shoot birds from the hip when training a pointing dog steadiness .....but then of course, those are all "going away" shots , the easiest shot of the lot in my opinion. I greatly prefer the cheaper form of grouse shooting , shooting over pointing dogs on moors where the birds are few and far between.

Sorry , I rambled on a bit there ..... it happens when you get "age challenged !"

Bill T.