Gun Dog Forum

I headed out with the pack this morning to hunt sage hens. When I got to where I hunt the temp was in the mid 30's and there was an inch of snow. A week ago it was in the upper 80's and dry as a bone. My 9 yo GSP Hanna did a flawless job pointing and holding until the rest of us got there. My son's 6 mos old Lab, Rocky had a great time running around flushing all those big birds but wanted no part of picking up the juv. male I shot. We'll work on that. Puck my 6 yo Lab/GWR took care of the retrieving duties though. Lots of birds. We flushed about 40 in a 20 minute hunt.

LOL you know you are killing an endangered species right. There are a lot where we have been training this summer as well. Glad you had a nice hunt.

Sounds like a fun hunt for all involved, dogs & people

mask wrote:LOL you know you are killing an endangered species right. There are a lot where we have been training this summer as well. Glad you had a nice hunt.

I intend to shoot a few more too. They are a perfect bird for training a new dog, they give off a lot of scent, hold well and where I hunt there are a bunch of them. Hopefully Rocky, the Lab will start picking them up by the end of the week. When I threw the one I shot yesterday for him in the yard, with out any other dogs around he picked it up and brought it back to me. Now I have to work at him doing it in the field.

Went out again today here are some photos: top- dogs with 1 bird limit, middle-Puck on point, bottom-Hanna on Point.

Hey fishvik, sounds like a great hunt with some nice pictures. By the way your Lab x GWR, what is a GWR?

Art, that's a typo should be, GWP German Wirehaired Pointer. Puck is a great dog.

Sage grouse seemed like they had a good year this year in western Wyoming. My wife took a friend and first time bird hunter out on Saturday, they got into a lot birds and had 2 each pretty quickly. I took my 5 YO GWP out on Saturday for some mountain grouse. On my way, I passed an area that can hold sage grouse, and did a quick hunt...got one point and shot a tasty young bird. Curiously, there did not appear to be any other birds in the area. I then headed into the mountains, and found wet snow clinging to the underbrush (it was 80 degrees just 2 days before this)! I have not seen a lot of mountain grouse this summer, I do think they were affected by the big winter and wet spring. We ended up finding good numbers of blue (dusky) grouse way up on the ridges, but the ruffed grouse numbers seem to be a bit down. I ended up soaking wet and chilled to the bone with 1 sage grouse, 3 blue grouse and 2 ruffed grouse.

Who says Wyoming does not have good upland bird hunting

Wyobio, Yeah, forest grouse hunting has been lean on this side of Idaho. I gonna try hunting up farther north for grouse and chukars this week.