2022

[AverageGuy]

September 1st means doves and that is what the dogs and I have been doing. Dogs took turns and got lots of work: marking, running to the fall, hunting dead, retrieving to heel and delivering to hand.

Spud's 7th season


His coat could be an Ad for Inukshuk





Tess' work this summer really paid off.

[Willie T]

Awesome AG! Where did everyone go?

[orhunter]

Still here.....

Packing for trip, leaving Monday, 0 dark thirty..... Be home someday. Wife says I gotta be back for Thanksgiving because we're cooking. Will see how that works....?

Wish everyone a great season....

[orhunter]

Rolled into Podunk MT on schedule. Wednesday while on a short hike just for exercise, kid broke a toenail. Really gushed blood, looked worse than it was. She’s doing okay now. Wrap and boot. Got a limit of Sharptails today by hitting a spot most everyone else would drive past. If’n you hike over the hill, good things happen on the other side. The kid, green as she is, pointed a covey of Huns @ about 70 yards while we were on our way back to the truck.. Might make an actual huntin’ dog someday. Sorry, no photos...

[orhunter]

Got the kid into some pheasants today just for training. No Sharpies present. She had some nice points and other stuff. The frosting on the cake was on the way back to the truck. At the top of a rise, she lifts her head as high as she can and points her nose toward the sky. Just stands there a while so I poke around out front of her but no bird. Decide to let her run the show the way she wants. Couple minutes later she starts moving forward.... slowly. Head high, nose tasting the 25 mph wind. We get into a low area with taller cover and she keeps going.... slowly. I can’t see her, just the grass moving where she is. I let her get well ahead of me. She points then a rooster takes off. She tracked that bird on the wind for a good 100 yards. Must have a pretty good nose...... This is the first day she’s ever really smelled a pheasant.

[J D Patrick]

good stuff AG

[GONEHUNTIN']

Nice post Orhunter. I can feel the excitement.

[orhunter]

They are called, Korthals Cats, for a reason. I don’t necessarily like it but.... Did the same on a small covey of Huns today. Crept till it looked like she had her nose on one before it flushed. Weird, Huns don’t usually hold like that. Sloooooow.....

[Willie T]

Nice post Orhunter. I can feel the excitement.

X2

Moon and I have had a few setbacks getting going for the 2022 season. Apparently Moon thought he was part mongoose. He decided to tie up with a Cottonmouth. He killed the snake but got himself bit under the jaw. Had a nasty looking pump knot that turned black. After a week or so the swelling went down and the black sloughed off leaving pink skin with a hole for each fang.

B741AD5C-D72B-4E31-B685-16996081F87C.jpeg (65.62 KiB) Viewed 2731 times

Moon healed up fine and we attended a snake avoidance clinic with rattlesnakes, copperheads, and cottonmouths. Surprisingly, after being bitten, he was pretty cautious when the training started.
After working through that my wife who is a school teacher came down with Covid. Of course y’all know what happened next. Four days later and tending to the missus I came down with it too. Wife went back to work today. I think I sweated it all out last night and my fever broke. This morning at breakfast I was able to taste butter and bacon which are the first things I’ve been able to taste. Hard to go wrong with bacon! Anyway I am optimistic that Covid is almost in the rear view mirror and Moon, Cricket, and me can get after it.
Willie T

[orhunter]

Where I am there aren’t supposed to be snakes, too far north but I did see one in the road a couple days ago. Harmless Garter Snake but pretty big. The Rattlers we have in the PNW, including MT are supposed to be the same species, pretty harmless. They make you wish you hadn’t gotten bitten and that’s about it. They can kill dogs but it’s pretty rare.

Covid has progressed to the point where it’s no more dangerous than the rattler bites for healthy people. In Oregon, most the people who are hospitalized that have Covid, are there for other reasons. Few hospitalizations are directly related to Covid. When my wife had it, I didn’t catch it. When I did eventually come down with it, it was a minor cough and a weird feeling in my trachea. Four days later, gone. I didn’t tell anyone I had it because I wasn’t around anyone who would have to worry about it. It’s good you had a fever. It shows you got a pretty good dose and you’re immune system jumped right in. Now you’ve got a good resistance in the bank. I was involved in a privately funded study so no bias in the findings. Purely scientific based on acquired immunity through the presence of antibodies. Didn’t have to wade through the general public who thought they had it but didn’t. You had to test positive before becoming part of the study. A person could be tested for antibodies but it wasn’t relevant to the study.

[RowdyGSP]

Nice way to break in the season AG. A good dove hunt is hard to beat and them is two fine dogs you got there.

OR, glad you are getting out with the pup
And getting on birds. A buddy and I just got back from MT and I'm going back solo in October.

[orhunter]

Rowdy... Good for you. If you’re headed to the NE, be aware a lot of the birds (phez) are very immature, little brown things. Yes, tons of birds but finding colored adult roosters might leave you wanting. Many will be disappointed.

[Willie T]

Rowdy... Good for you. If you’re headed to the NE, be aware a lot of the birds (phez) are very immature, little brown things. Yes, tons of birds but finding colored adult roosters might leave you wanting. Many will be disappointed.

The silver lining is it may bode well for the future.

[orhunter]

Willie, you’re right about that. Lots of young birds will get a pass for the opener which can be a slaughterhouse. When they mature, most hunters will have left. Late season could be pretty good. And, if there’s another mild winter and a drier spring, cooler summer, next year will be amazing. That’s a lot of if.

[Willie T]

Hope you are getting your pooch in them Harvey. My long time hunting buddy and I will be knocking around on the prairie with our dogs a little later this fall. I’m really hoping to get the young one taken to school on late season Sharpies after they get good and spooky….