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There is nothing in staunch and steady that prohibits self-relocation. Blues are hard to hunt with a pointing dog, as they are little track stars. I have found that if the handler stays very quiet and has a hard charging dog most times it will freeze them. Not always, but enough to get some shooting..tommyboy72 wrote:If you make him staunch and steady like most well trained dogs are you are gonna have some long days. Dogs need to be able to relocate on blues just like they would on pheasant, probably more. Don't be too hard on him if he points, moves up, points, moves up and so on. They have to be able to get in on the birds to point them. Or you can bust the covey up with a flusher and then hunt the singles as you would normally. Good luck. I hunt them all the time here in the panhandle where I live.
Yes it is bad. Not the worst thing you could do, and is easily correctable. He is two now and needs to be under your control if you ever expect to succesfully hunt him. Think about it, did you expect him to stay on point for an hour or two? Nope, he was learning to knock them and go find some more. You were not involved and not on his mind, he as not hunting for you, but was self hunting.SA Doc wrote:We work on basic obedience every night at home and he's got the whoa, here, etc down. I thought letting him get on some birds would be a good thing, even if I couldn't be watching every move. I did have a Garmin Alpha on him and knew where he was at all times. Is the general consensus that it is bad to let him loose to hunt on his own? Trainer is 6 hours away( Anderson Classic Gundogs) in North Texas.
Did you bother to read that he is not hunting the dog, but allowing him to run free while he was involved in other activities? Without being insulting, I do not know how to respond.blanked wrote:I have to disagree with some of the answers your getting. If the breeding is there your dogs natural ability is to hunt and point. You cannot teach this. As long as he will come when called let the dog go. Put a garmin astro on him so you know where he is at but let him learn to hunt and point without you interfering. Wild birds will teach him what he needs to know
Keep your mouth shut except for praise. Let him chase birds since this is his first season. It will build his desire to hunt and find birds. After a solid season of this and shooting birds over him then start the formal training.
Forgot to add work on getting him use to the shotgun blast before you shoot over him. Do that and again teach him to come when called. Bond with him. Other than that forget about obedience work in the field. Too much obedience will create a close working dog always looking at you foe directions. You want a pointing dog to range out and cover ground on his own
As long as he is holding birds for you until you get there he is not self hunting
Read the last couple sentences of the first paragraph. The dog was encourge to self hunt.SA Doc wrote:We went down to the deer lease Saturday to do some work and saw 15-20 coveys of blues from the top drive. I did a little dove hunting at a tank and he went off in the brush and flushed one covey. He retrieved A few doves, but he'd rather be off hunting. Did not have time to force fetch him this year, but looks like will have to if want to use him on doves.
There's a resident covey of blues that hangs out near a feeder at camp and he followed them around for a couple of hours while I was working on my camper. Saw him point them a few times, but when they ran he followed. He was dead tired when we got home yesterday.
Looks like we'll have a fun season.
That little oversight doe not even get you close to a foul up, I make bigger mistakes in eating breakfast.blanked wrote:boy did i miss that. i fouled up