Closing day ... what do you remember most?

Scott Linden · Post by **Scott Linden** » Sun Feb 01, 2015 10:54 pm

It's over, here ... and what a season. Mine was marked by the extraordinary number of great people i met, hunted with, and shared a beer with after a hunt. What was the highlight of YOUR season?

coff20 · Post by **coff20** » Mon Feb 02, 2015 12:24 am

I didn't get to hunt with my dog much this season since I go to school out of state. However, while I was home for Christmas break we managed to get out chasing some eastern California chukars for a few days. We only found one group of birds, but after splitting them up Luc gave me a very solid point on a single. I'm sorry to say I didn't do my job near as well as he did and I missed the shot, but as always being out there and watching him work was a blast. From that group of birds I did manage to bag one and the highlight of my season happened right after I shot it. At 5 years old Luc has never once retrieved a bird (my fault much more than his), but he almost had a change of heart this December. After I knocked down my chukar, I asked Luc to fetch it up not expecting any response, but to my surprise off he went. He went over to the bird, picked it up, turned and looked at me, then took two or three steps towards me with the silliest, most confused look on his face. It looked like he was thinking "wait a second what am I doing? I don't retrieve." Then as if responding to that thought he immediately dropped the bird and took off in the other direction off where the rest of the chukars had flushed. I wish I had my camera handy because the look on his face would have made a great picture and plus I was really proud of him for picking it up. Five years into this, I don't care to force him to retrieve if he doesn't want to. Given the amount of training he got(not a lot), he does a very good job pointing and either way I enjoy every moment I get with him while I'm home, whether that be hunting in the winter, or fishing/camping/backpacking in the summer. When it comes down to it he's my buddy and I can't imagine bumming around in the outdoors without him.

A pic of him and my old man, and of him and our chukar.

Big bloc · Post by **Big bloc** » Mon Feb 02, 2015 3:54 am

This was 2 weeks ago. Pointed all 4 birds under 2 hrs all wild on public land. A real bird finder

IMG_0422.JPG

UglyD · Post by **UglyD** » Mon Feb 02, 2015 9:28 am

I would say the most enjoyment of this season was watching my youngest dog come in to his own , my older dog tolerating his youth and myself learning that there is so much more than the kill and sharing that pulling a trailer across the Rocky Mountain West with my wife.

Grange · Post by **Grange** » Mon Feb 02, 2015 9:01 pm

My highlight of this hunting season was immediately after taking runner-up at the Didcot Classic, which included an hour brace and a half hour in a call back on wild birds, we went across the road and and hunted grouse for another 4 hours. I had a long relaxing drive home with a nice placement and a grouse for dinner the next night.

Vision · Post by **Vision** » Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:12 am

I've got a few weeks left in my season. But the highlight of this year is my 3 year old GSP became really honest in standing birds at long distances. One week she made a 1000 yard cast up a canyon and went on point at 950+/- and held them. That day was the start of her transformation. The following week I took this picture of her after finding her on point. She had been gone for close to an hour. In the mountainous chukar country gamins are continually loosing signals. I had her at .8 miles then lost the signal, I kept going and got a point signal at 600+ yards. My hunting partner went and got the truck and picked me up at the bottom of the canyon. We drove basically in a straight line North with the handheld out the window searching for a signal. Finally 3 canyons over the garmin picked up the dog on point 300 yards up the canyon. I hustled up the canyon to find her standing at the top of this canyon. Elapsed time was 50 minutes at this point.

Post by **mnaj_springer** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 1:06 am

My highlight was watching my newest pup retrieve her first pheasant at 7 months old.

UglyD · Post by **UglyD** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 4:19 pm

mnaj_springer wrote:My highlight was watching my newest pup retrieve her first pheasant at 7 months old.

I my AVATAR that's my youngest goofball at 7 months retrieving his first pheasant- he'll be hard pressed to beat that one.

Rik · Post by **Rik** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 7:39 pm

New Year’s Eve 2014, last day to hunt Ruffed Grouse in Washington. The banks of the Columbia River near the Canadian border, mixed forest of Aspen, Birch and spruce.
7:00 AM 32 degrees, 10 knot Northerly, mixed snow and rain, in a word: Miserable.

Jack an old setter ( 11 Year old setter, four time FC, out of Tekoa Mountain Sunrise), and a 70 year old man with a 80 year old Parker, head out to find some Thunder Chickens despite the weather.

Jack hasn’t really slowed up at all despite his age, and takes off at 8-10 mph to search every piece of birdy cover within a 300 yard range Within 45 minutes he’s soaked and shivering, but on solid point about 75 yards from me along the river bank. He’s still solid when I get there 10 minutes later( I have slowed with age). The bird was, of course, long gone.

The rain and wind had increased but the sun was starting to show in the SW, so I put my poncho up as a lean-to and tried to dry Jack off and warm him up.Started thinking about home and a fire and some good Sscots Whiskey.

45 minutes later, the sun broke out the wind dropped to 5 knots and the temp dropped to 28 degrees.

Birds, including Ruffs, started coming out of the brush all up and down the river. Jack had 11 productive points in the next hour. I shot three and passed on the others, in hopes of finishing my limit on Jacks last point of the day. The points continued every ten minutes for the nest hour and then stopped like all the birds had simply vanished. So, no limit.

We headed back to the truck and the snow started to fall. Time to go home. Jack slept for 9 hours on the way home. He was so quiet that I had to keep checking his breathing.

In total Jack had over 25 solid, beautiful, productive points on wild birds that day, far more than I had ever seen in 50 years of upland hunting .

aksportsman · Post by **aksportsman** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 10:29 pm

So This year was a blur, my little girl turned one this weekend before which we wrapped up the season putting down 8 quail and 22 woodcock (3 banded 1 transmitter backpacked). The most memorable hunt besides her first bird came when I took an old friend out for his first woodcock hunt. Being so young I've tried to keep the expectations low this season but she has such a drive and instincts I always felt she'd catch on sooner rather than later. That day was one I will never forget. She pointed one bird after another even pinned three woodcock down in one blackberry patch for over 5 min with out twitching as we fumbled around to get ready for a shot. An hour in and with five birds down one banded Amber struck a beautiful point huffing the air like she could hardly breath as we came around her flank. We polished of the limit with ease and as we celebrated with my little pup we noticed not only was the bird banded it had been fitted with a radio transmitter backpack! A memorable hunt to say the least.

aksportsman · Post by **aksportsman** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 10:44 pm

few more

41magsnub · Post by **41magsnub** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 2:40 pm

After a great start, mid season the dog "forgot" how to be a pointing dog. She was doing pretty much everything wrong... flushing, repositioning multiple times and ultimately bumping the bird, not steady to anything, playing keep-away with a bird, and etc. It would have been a bunch of big fat zeros in a NAVHDA test.

Stopped hunting her and took her all the way back down to the whoa post and up through all the drills for 3 weekends, pushing her as hard as I thought she could handle. She knew what she was supposed to do, but thought she could get away with not doing it. She just needed a reminder that what she had learned was not optional, and it was my lesson to not let her get away with things. The 4th weekend I took her hunting again and she was perfect and she did great the rest of the season. That 4th weekend where she was doing the right thing again was the most memorable because it was such a relief.

KsHusker · Post by **KsHusker** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 2:48 pm

Didnt get to hunt as much this year as I normally do, however from Christmas time to the end of our season Jan 31, hit it pretty hard.

Found more quail this year than I have in 10 yrs or so. Dont know that quail #'s can rebound across KS as widespread as they used to be due to all the lost CRP and change in farming practices, but it was sure nice to see better #'s where you found the right habitat.

3 20-30 bird covies in January all pointed by the dog on public ground was the hi-light of my season. Only took home two due to poor shooting but hoping to soon forget that part of the day...ha!

birdogg42 · Post by **birdogg42** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 3:57 pm

Hunting the last day of season and finding 10 coveys. Plus my 2 dogs found 98% of the birds and retrieved them all as well.

Mike

QuillGordon · Post by **QuillGordon** » Fri Feb 06, 2015 7:41 am

A slow start this upland season with a puncture wound to the paw that became infected. Culture test identified the bacteria & Creek was put on the right anti-biotic. A six week hiatus in the prime of the season. Once back the hound was on a holy tear. It's been an enjoyable ride since

Pheasanttracker · Post by **Pheasanttracker** » Fri Feb 06, 2015 8:46 am

Most memorable this season was a late December hunt in PA on public land. Hunting with two buddies our 2 dogs point a single covey of 7 pheasants. Smack dab in the middle of a knee high field of grass. For just a few moments I felt like I was hunting those famed fields of the upper Midwest. All in all a great season.

Garrison · Post by **Garrison** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 12:15 pm

-1- Sitting on the side of a mountain and sharing the last bites of a steak sandwich from the Star Hotel with my dog, man those Basque folks know how to make a sandwich.

-2- My coffee freezing up before I could even get the dogs on the ground in -15 temps, on our cross country hunting trip.

-3- The Advil and Woodford Reserve by the fire after long days in the sage brush hills.

CDN_Cocker · Post by **CDN_Cocker** » Sun Feb 22, 2015 7:07 pm

Highlight of my season was actually a late season waterfowl hunt - something I hardly ever do. The cocker showed once more he has the heart of a much larger dog. First time handling big water ice and he did it like a champ.

Gun Dog Forum