Grant Wright
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Awesome pics. I know some guys measure the length of pull on their shotguns when getting a new recoil pad or a gun fitted with their typical hunting garb fo ensure a good mount. I use most of my shotguns throughout the year so that wouldn’t work all that well for me.
Have you tried any whoa breaking on your dog? It will help steady her up and takes the chase out on the singles you miss, or more importantly, keeps them from chasing a big covey after they rise.
I’m heading out this afternoon to chase some more birds. I’ll give you guys a download when I get back to the grid. Until then….
The bullpen
Birds on a prickly pear flat
Team work makes the dream work
Wild bird country
More to come….
All wild birds in west Texas. My best day we pointed 34 coveys, that does not include the singles and doubles. We had 4 crops of birds from the spring through late summer. My dogs get about 60 days a year on wild birds including offseason work.
I shoot an O/U .28 for dove and quail.
I’ve got some more pics I can add later this week.
Looks like a fun hunt, Zach.
I’ve been chasing birds with my dogs for a couple of months, enjoying some of the best wild bird hunting in the lower 48 this season.
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GREAT book….the first evening I started reading the book when I crawled into bed and ended up staying up for an additional two hours reading. His articles in Gray’s are the first I read in each new issue. I definitely gained a new respect for remote fly guides after reading the book.
4 Runner — Sold my 2005 to my father and it is still running like a top 176,000 miles later. I use mid grade gasoline, Mobile 1 synthetic oil and stay on top of maintenance….it’s never been in the shop.
I went back out yesterday for a short three hour hunt on a warm January day. My hunting buddy ended up having to work so I was flying solo. The dogs found 4 covey and handled them nicely.
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Similar to you, these were my first two pointing dogs and I had no clue how to begin. Fortunately I have a good friend who is an exceptional trainer walk me through the process and I have access to wild birds and keep my own pigeons to train with. He actually whoa broke and steadied up Reba and I’ve been working on Lucy myself. There are a lot of methods but I’ve stuck with the Smith Kennels method (Ronnie Smith) and attended one of their weekend training seminars about a year ago. It’s been a fun process and a great learning experience for me.
First pic is a pair of wild blue quail reba has pegged under the tiny little scrub brush. It is very unusual for blues to stick like that in such little cover.
The second pic is a really classy little 9 month old pup that belongs to a friend of mine. He is going to make a very nice dog in another 6 months.
Third is a handful of wild birds (bobwhite hen and cock and a blue quail)
Last is my dog Lucy pointing a small covey of blue quail.
Nice work with your pup! It’s a great feeling to have the time, money and energy pay off with some birds in the hand with the help of man’s best friend. We’ve actually had some better wild bird numbers this year. Not great, but definitely better than last year when we were in the worst drought in 100 years and had literally no rain and extreme heat. I was somewhat distraught. I’ve got two English pointers that are both two. Reba is broke to wing and shot (doesn’t move until I tap her on the shoulder after flushing and shooting) and Lucy is getting there. Lucy is broke on pigeons and penned raised birds but needs more work on her wild birds (hence the collar on the flank in the pic below).
I’ve become somewhat obsessed with chasing wild birds with pointing dogs and keep a loft of homers for some off season tune up work. We had some good luck over the holidays chasing pheasant and quail. In my best hunt we found 5 coveys of wild birds in just over 3 hours with two dogs. 4 coveys of bobs and one of blues.
Definitely seems like there would be a strong market for some Simms camo waders, but I don’t think the Sitka pattern is a very good pattern compared to others on the market. I was duck hunting last Saturday with some guys and walked across the pond to pick up some ducks. When I turned and walked back the Sitka pattern popped out more than the other three (much cheaper) camo jackets in the brush blind. I’ve noticed the pattern does not blend well when viewed at a distance in a number of different terrains.
Quail Valley Farms, Inc — They’ve been raising birds since the 60’s and provide a tone of strong flying birds to field trialers and trainers.
They have a place in Warwick, GA and Doles, GA (not sure where you are in relation to their location)
Phone: 229.535.6320 or email quailvalley.sr@gmail.comThey key on pen raised birds is to find strong flying birds your dog cannot catch and develop bad habits on.
Good luck!
Zach, she is a Boykin; the second I’ve owned. It looks like the file may have been too large so I’ll retry this evening.
Skipping the South??? That makes absolutely no sense from a marketing standpoint.
On a slightly different note, I’ve yet to see a really well made bird-hunting film. I know it is difficult to translate pointing dogs, flying birds, etc. into a film but I’d figure that someone could have figured it out by now.
According to the guide, he had this gal and her husband out during Tarpon season…to put it nicely, the lady was not happy to be on the boat and unpleasant to be around to say the least. They were staked out on the edge of a flat on a falling tide with tarpon cruising by regularly. She announced that she needed to use the restroom and the guide and husband agreed that the fishing was too good to leave, plus they would lose the spot to another guide if they had to run to shore. They struck a deal and the guide and husband agreed that they would stand at the front of the boat and not turn around and she would grab the poling platform and hang off of the back of the boat to do her business. The guide thought she only needed to pee. She crawls to the rear of the boat does her thing, and they get back to fishing.
The guide takes them in at the end of the day and heads back to the house and garages his boat since he is leaving the next day for a family wedding event that would have him out of town for 4 days. The guide returns home and is prepping his rig for the next day of guiding. He opens the garage and is hit with a god-awful odor. He can’t figure out what the stench is until he opens the live well and realizes the lady had not pissed off of the back of the boat but rather had crapped in his live well! The turd sat inside the live well that had just enough moisture inside to keep it extra moist, and the heat of the garage in the Florida summer compounded the odor! I can only imagine the smell when he finally opened the live well and was hit with the odor of a four day old moist turd sealed in a live well inside of a hot garage!
I picked up the book after your interview and it is now one of my absolute favorites. Beware, it’s tough to put down once you pick it up! Nolte’s articles in Gray’s are usually the best read in every issue.
I’ve made it a habit to ask guides about some of their craziest experiences while guiding and have heard some outrageously hilarious stories. As you would imagine, many have the common thread of “that guy” somewhere along the way. The very best involved “that girl” crapping in the live well of a tarpon guide’s boat down in Islamorada…it still makes me laugh just thinking about it.
Great read. Brings to mind some of Miles Noltes stories from the Alaska Chronicles, which is a great book if you’ve not already read it.
Best fish of the trip!
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Zach — I’ll try resizing this evening and posting the additional pictures….don’t know Ted, in fact, they say he is rarely out there. I piggy backed on a friends jet, changing the 7+ hour drive to a 40 minute commute. Vermejo sits just NW of Raton, NM and just SW of Trinidad, CO. Most of the ranch is in NM, but a portion spills over into CO.
Colin — It’s amazing what an iPhone with the camera+ app can do. It seems like I never take my digital SLR along anymore.
