Not Pointing Grouse

slistoe
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Re: Not Pointing Grouse

Post by slistoe » Fri Dec 24, 2010 11:23 am

BigShooter wrote: On the other hand whether I agree or not, I can understand those that would prefer not to hunt in a group with a young dog that had poor manners.
Anyone with any sense would not run a young, untrained dog in a group with other hunters and experienced dogs where the reasonable expectation of all involved would be to shoot birds over dogs.

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Ryman Gun Dog
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Re: Not Pointing Grouse

Post by Ryman Gun Dog » Fri Dec 24, 2010 12:01 pm

Rustyrat,
This is turning into a good thread because your knowledge of our Pa Grouse is just outstanding, and you are correct in both cases, many men with fully trained Grouse dogs do not like to hunt their dogs around puppies or ill mannered older dogs. This however is because many of these men get to spend very little time in the Grouse woods, they pay a guy like me to train their dogs, because they works so many hours at their jobs making a living. When they get to hunt they want to hunt alone, and have a good time with their trained dog. However if they are not on private land, they must abide by the PGC laws, same as everyone else. It is only good hunting manners to make sure a pup interfears with their hunt as little as possible. Your statement about our Pa running Grouse is also right on the money, our old time wild Lancaster County Pheasants, could take lessons from our spooky Pa Grouse, both birds run like crazy when they are predatorized. Our spooky Grouse run like mad thru the forest and a dog must adapt and learn to walk the bird to a set, without busting the bird, to become a good Grouse dogs here in Pa, the dog must relocate and usually more than once. Until most men witness this really happening for themselves, its hard to explain. Eric Miller our Chief PGC Biologist got to witness this for himself, behind our female Gordon Setter Penny. In his words you got to see it to believe it.
Not quite sure about what you ment about shooting to many birds, you might want to add a little detail so I more fully undestand this part of your post. However you are dead on about the rest of your post.
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Re: Not Pointing Grouse

Post by Truthseeker » Fri Dec 24, 2010 12:16 pm

i have seen the same kind of work from dogs on chukar and huns, only difference is the country they are found in.

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Re: Not Pointing Grouse

Post by Ryman Gun Dog » Fri Dec 24, 2010 12:32 pm

TS,
No doubt a Hun in the same habitat with the same predatorization would act in the same defensive manner if it wanted to survive, however a Chukar would probably not stand a chance. In fact until Huns were outlawed by the PGC, we used planted Huns for our training birds because they acted much like our Grouse, especially after the Huns had been out a week or so, they were great training birds. Huns are in the Grouse family and spook easily to run or flight. Lost their use because the PGC did not want to let them re-establish in the wild, even thou years before a projest to do just that, had failed here in Pa. Now even the regulated Shooting Grounds here in Pa must have a special permit to use them, too bad they were great training birds for the individual trainer.
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Re: Not Pointing Grouse

Post by slistoe » Fri Dec 24, 2010 12:46 pm

Ryman Gun Dog wrote: It is only good hunting manners to make sure a pup interfears with their hunt as little as possible.
OK, this thing is getting sidetracked IMO. It has nothing to do with hunting manners. It has to do with perception of the worth of a dog. I take a young dog out and most all experienced hunters witnessing would characterize the dog as a useless waste of time. You wouldn't be able to give them the dog - they would sooner shoot it than own it. Take out the 4 yr. old dog and the same folks are incredulous - "How do you get a dog like that?". It has to do with people's misconceptions on how a dog is "developed" and a belief (well founded in many folks experience base since the vast majority of hunters (well actually - dog owners in general) have no interest nor aptitude in dog training) that a young dog of such behavior would be untrainable. Which gets back to the first statement about shooting birds over dogs that "gag me". These are the "do no harm" dogs.

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Re: Not Pointing Grouse

Post by rustyrat » Sat Dec 25, 2010 5:45 pm

Bigshooter
the answer to your first question is found in the remainder of the sentence (shoot too many birds over dogs other than britts that gag me. i would just as soon hunt behind a hot springer as many of the "pointing" dogs that they use) it all comes down to what you think the dog is doing and how you mesure the quality of a hunt. i've shot lots of grouse but i get off on the dog. you can walk and stop through several of the coverts we hunt and on a given day do better w/out the dog. when in doubt i ask the guy "do you think the bird knows your coming or not? if the bird is already avoiding the hunter is the dog merely an early warning system? would a springer out do or perform equally as the pointing dog in question?

question two confuses me "With the second underlined portion, am I understanding correctly that these same folks hate young dogs that don't have good manners on birds yet? If so, why do you suppose that is?

in short people think my juveniles cost them birds, i'm not looking for manners with young dogs and yes a three year old grouse dog is more often than not young, i'm looking to educate a dog with the best trainers on earth (BIRDS) if you have a fairly broke two year old and he chases a grouse you either fix him or understand you wasted a lot of time getting them broke. i DO NOT want a five year old dog that quarters in the woods. thats for in the fields. a grouse dog with a PHD goes to the birds like a missile, he/she knows where to look because they have a PHD and you don't get a PHD in two years now do you??? are you starting to get why they don't like my juveniles but go gaga over the 5 year olds. everyone is a hero when bird numbers are high but everything changes as the population falls
the real answer to your question is more like this "if you buy an Izusu no matter how much time you spend learning to drive you still have an Izusu what blows my mind is how many people actually buy Porsches and turn them into Izusu's in the first year of life and never know what they could have had"
Winnen

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Re: Not Pointing Grouse

Post by BigShooter » Sat Dec 25, 2010 9:32 pm

RR,

I was pretty sure I got the gist of what you were trying to say but I had a hard time following the sentence structure for some reason. You were talking about young dogs without their PhDs. Then Slistoe started talking about not hunting with young untrained dogs and then Ryman Gun Dog started talking about not hunting around untrained puppies. As usual everyone seems to know pretty much when a dog has reached it's potential on grouse by training & experience but there seemed to be some differences in what people might mean by a young, "untrained" dog. Personally I like working the dogs more than shooting the birds and it doesn't bother me a bit to be afield with a puppy or a young, trained dog that still makes a mistake. I haven't read a single thing yet that makes me think dogs & grouse act any differently in PA than they do in MN. I've hunted with labs, EP, ESS, GWP, ES, Britts & GSPs. Right now I prefer to hunt with pointing dogs but I like all kinds of gun dog breeds. If a dog can learn everything from every bird species hunted and can figure out everything they need to do to pin down birds for the gunner & retrieve them softly to hand, then as owners and trainers there's nothing for us to do but buy them, feed them, allow them to get some exercise & place them where they can get wild bird exposure. Apparently there aren't very many "completely naturals" born because there are an awful lot of trainers like Slistoe & RGD & an awful lot of DK & DD guys around providing advice about dog training based upon their own personal experience training their own & other's dogs.

Back to the OP's question. Just give the dog more exposure to grouse, be patient and more likely than not it'll all work out just fine.
Mark

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Re: Not Pointing Grouse

Post by BigShooter » Sun Dec 26, 2010 12:57 am

I can tell you MN birds get spookier as the season progresses due to pressure from hunters and of course some areas get more pressure than others. I couldn't tell you if PA or VA grouse get more hunting pressure than MN grouse but that would certainly be a reason for their grouse to be spookier. MN has 16.3 million acres of forest & PA has 17 million acres of forest but I have no idea how much grouse habitat each state has nor do I know the number of grouse hunters per square mile of grouse habitat. I can tell you where I hunt there are predators all over on the ground and in the air. Wolves, coyotes, foxes, racoons, badgers, skunks, hawks, owls, eagles, bobcat, ferel cats, mink, ermine, fisher, no wolverine that I know of, an occasional mountain lion, lots of bear ... you name it we've got it except .... not much in the way of snakes, esp. a lack of venemous snakes.
Mark

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Re: Not Pointing Grouse

Post by Ryman Gun Dog » Sat Jan 01, 2011 1:21 pm

Big Shooter,
Your analysis of predatorization is very much on the money when it comes to our spooky Pa Grouse, we are over run with predators here in Pa. Also we have a great deal more than 17 million acres to hunt Grouse on here. In the mountains that reach from my place to Mikes down on Kettle Creek there are over 5 Million acres of Grouse habitat. However because of our lack of logging in certain areas, only our South West, North West and North Central parts of the state are prime Grouse habitat. I am lucky to be located in NC, Pa. We also have a lot of private land here that is off limits to many Grouse hunters. So the hunting pressure is some of the reason for our spooky birds, however because of our massive Coyote problems and our even bigger Predator bird problems, the Grouse here either run or fly before what would be considered a normal safety zone, for most western or far northern Grouse. Its not that the birds are different, it because our predator problems are so very bad that they become spooky to survive. There for the dogs must adapt, become very stealth and be able to walk a Grouse to point, relocating more than 2 or 3 times without
bumping the bird into flight. Just because a dog is fast around here, by no means makes him a good Grouse dog, far from it. In fact a very quick dog who makes a lot of noise moving thru our Grouse woods, becomes a big time hindrance for actually gunning Grouse. What usually happens is that the young dogs who are learning, do fairly well in the beginning of Grouse season, due to the young Grouse that are around, by the end of Nov these quick young dogs are usually having lots of problems setting our older wiser Grouse. However when our Grouse population is way down the young dogs have problems from the on set of the season. We have a lot of good Woodcock dogs here in Pa, but an outstanding Grouse dog is as Davis said, almost beyond cost.
RGD/Dave

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