2022

[AverageGuy]

Moon's getting an excellent education!

[weimdogman]

Average Guy is everything ok? Always enjoy your posts. When you left Gundog forums I slowed way down on checking in there.

[AverageGuy]

Average Guy is everything ok? Always enjoy your posts. When you left Gundog forums I slowed way down on checking in there.

Hey Happy Thanksgiving! Yea all good this way. I'm Blessed. Interrupted bird season for some hot whitetail rut hunting with bow and rifle, dogs and I will be back on the birds next week.

How's things your way? Good I hope.

[AverageGuy]

Buddy sent me some photos of Spud and I in action.

Spud had tracked this running covey of Huns and finally got them pinned up against the edge of the canyon. His body language said they were close and they were. Got one shot off and one bird down before the rest dove straight down into the canyon never to be seen again.



Me cashing in on another covey of Huns Spud got pointed over on the right.



Gunning chukars over some stellar dog work from Spud, tracking, pointing, relocating pursuit eventually got the covey stopped 450 yards up above me. He was still holding them when I finally arrived and this photo is the covey rise.



We interrupt this bird season for the Whitetail Rut and it was totally worth it. Dogs and I are back on the birds now.

[weimdogman]

Nice deer ! Glad all is well.

[weimdogman]

Sunday was nice 25° with a 6mph wind. Hunted just 1 dog as I wanted him to be able to run a little bigger in lighter cover where I hoped to find some pheasants. Got multiple points and 1 long point track trail that ended with a long wild flush. Did bag a rooster and get a nice retrieve. Dog is now at the vet with a hole in his leg so he will get some rest and be able to put some weight back on.
Vet said you are lucky that hole in his leg is right over the top of a large vein. If he cut that he may not have made it here. Said as he cleaned the wound it was amazing to see.

Nice point on a hen he overran.

[weimdogman]

Here he is.

[weimdogman]

I can and do run all 3 or 2 dogs together quite often especially if I have other hunters with me. Getting out in open country it is too difficult to keep up with dogs in opposite directions. Hens hold well enough but those roosters are a different story.

[AverageGuy]

Glad things turned out well for your dog. The way they go at it it's a wonder they are not injured more often, especially their eyes.

No way I can enjoy running my two dogs together on pheasants. Pheasant hunting to me means having to hustle and keep up with my dogs on track, point, relocate pursuits that often go a long ways before a terrain change allows us to get the rooster stopped long enough to get him in the air. Way too often the dogs get on separate roosters going different directions.

Now hunting two good dogs together, each with their own handler is wonderful. Have done alot of that.

Had a day last season where a good hunter and his nice GSP, and my Spud dog and I were hunting the same big native grass pasture in KS. We started out together but the running pheasants took us in different directions. We met up at the truck some time later, each with a limit of 4 roosters. We could hear each other shoot but ended up hundreds of yards apart.

That is the typical experience hunting running roosters in grass for me. They go where they go and you either follow your dog or miss out on the opportunity.

[AverageGuy]

Dogs and I were on the Prairie last week. 10 degrees and 30 MPH wind made me mostly uninterested in taking my gloves off, thus not very many photos.









There were big flocks of sharptails and prairie chickens around but the weather was such that they flew into grain fields at first light, fed and then flew back into pretty much naked low grass cover to loaf. Completely unapproachable and I was not interested in sitting and pass shooting them. The last day however the wind laid down and the temp climbed into the high 40s. I ran Tess in a couple of spots and we scored a couple of nice rooster pheasants.

Put her up and dropped Spud in a spot that looked promising for a third rooster and sharptail or prairie chickens (yes both are present, often in the same flock and I have also taken several hybrids over the years).

Spud did some beautiful point and relocate work and we scored our third rooster. He also had 6-7 points on the grouse but everytime I needed to be 10 yards closer when they flushed. We hunted til the end of shooting time, I unloaded my gun and we headed back to the truck exhausted and happy.

This was my view as I cleaned the roosters at the truck.

[weimdogman]

40 ° with a steady 20mph wind when my friend and I went into a 40 acre piece of private ground that was loaded with birds. He had 3 vdds and I had 2 weims. He headed down along the road while I headed out to bust thru a patch of reed canary grass. Patch is never more then 5 yards wide but a 100 yards long and when I busted thru it with weims zigzagging around snorting with the abundance of bird scent. I witnessed about 10 roosters wild flushing from the end of the patch. Looked over towards where my friend was and he had at least a dozen birds flying out ahead of him and his dogs. Having hunted this before I expected this and it was part of the plan as now we were going to find the birds that hunkered down or ran off into the lighter grass.

So we continued our hunt along the road and a little heavier cover found there.We both got multiple points on hens and had a rooster double back and flush out wild. Then we headed out into the lighter grass behind trailing tracking dogs. Probably 200 yards off the road we got a 5 dog point on a hen. I couldn't dig my phone out of my hunting coat in time for a photo as my friend moved in around the dogs and the hen flushed. Later he commented that even his pup honored and I said that wind was perfect so the dog was really probably pointing as much as honoring. With the wind and light cover we never got to flush a pointed rooster but my friend did bag one his dogs were working.

It is a real treat to watch multiple dogs working birds as they sneak thru the lighter cover and hopefully hold in a little patch or any change in cover. We run all those dogs knowing it's probably not the most effective but it gets dogs some grass time and offers some great memories.
I will get back out there in a couple weeks and hunt it by myself with just 1 dog and probably get my 3 if I can shoot at all.

[orhunter]

Thanks for the photos Kent. More great stuff. Don't you ever shoot any small bucks? That guy is a beauty.

[J D Patrick]

nice buck AG and good work on the birds!!

[J D Patrick]

scouted some places for next season in Wyoming and then got into the elk hunt - got lucky there as well. Got home on 9 Nov, got elk processed and in the freezer, then headed to LA to duck hunt - went a few days opening week and then a few more days right after thanksgiving. Earl did a great job (Kelty missed out due to heat cycle)

the elk

IMG_3323.jpg (865.94 KiB) Viewed 1632 times

Earl doing his think in Louisiana marsh

IMG_3434.jpg (772.27 KiB) Viewed 1632 times

and in his role as "Master and Commander" of the mudboat

IMG_3369b.jpg (248.23 KiB) Viewed 1632 times

[Willie T]

AG, nice buck! Congrats. You and your dogs are having another great year.

JD, you are killing it again this year.

Willie