More stuff from this season

Rips First Birds

Rip is going on 4 1/2 months and I have been so busy I haven't been able to do a bird intro until this weekend. I was not sure what to expect but I figured whatever happens ill make it fun and let her just do what she does. So I went and planted some pigeons and let her at um, no check cord no nothing this is just all pure instinct and fun. Needless to say she brought the noise and laid down solid points on her first birds.

One of her points of the day.

She held long enough for Jill to snap of few.

I had to kick the bird up to get it to fly....look how graceful I am!! Rip looks cool.

And she is off to the races

I got a few more pigeons that I will use to finish up her gun intro and after that she is on a diet of wild birds only!!!

Grouse

Grouse hunting started a few weeks ago we have made it out a few times and had some success. This year because we seems to have a good hatch and I have seen a lot of birds. Louie seems to finally be figuring these tricky buggers out.

Louie at the Basin, We had a good hunt and managed to bag one bird. I missed a big blue which would have been awesome. The Basin is really steep and when the blue got up I was so out of breath I could barely mount my gun. So we droped down into a canyon which held some Ruffies.

Ruffed Grouse

We have also been hunting The Corral which is one of my standard coverts that is a ton of fun to hunt. This year I have been hunting it a little different then years past and have been having success getting into birds. Last sabbath I was able to put two birds to rest, the grouse gods were good to me. I manage to get up about 5 flushes that day and connect on 2, not bad for me.

Dogs & Tools

My dogs are great dogs, at least I think they are. Louie is my first dog, he is a Braque Du Bourbonnais...I know right, everyone says what??? basically he is a French Pointer or a Bourbonnais Pointer. He is very intense and hunts hard. When I got Louie I think there were only around 550 BdB's in the US, that was a little over 2 years ago.




Rip is My second dog she is still young and my special little girl. She is an English Setter that is coverdog breed on her mom's side and shooting dog breed on her daddy's. She is cute as can be almost all white with a little orange on her ears. I am hoping by mid November that she will be out with us chasing birds.

Tools

Tools are almost as fun as dogs, but not quite. I love reading and talking about hunting gear what people are driving, shooting and what the latest technology there is in the dog hunting world...right now the Garmin dc30 is taking the hunting world by storm, and dammit I don't have one. I keep telling myself one day.This is the kinda nerdy stuff that birddoggers get into and its addicting.

What I am shooting is a CZ Ringneck 20gauge. I like the gun a lot. It handles well and is light weight which is nice when your hauling the thing around for miles. http://cz-usa.com/products/view/ringneck-201a-single-case-hardened/



I love my ecollar!! They are a true gift to dog training and hunting. I run a TriTronics Classic 70 G3EXP. It has just enough for what I need and is really basic which I really like. I love the tone option which I use most to recall Louie. It basically is a really nice whistle that I can contact Louie with a mile away. http://www.tritronics.com/remotetrainers-G3fieldseries.html


I like my vest a lot also it is a Mother Tech Day Pack. It has plenty of storage and I like the bladder option, because I can use the same bladder for my camelback and for hunting. The thing I am not really fond of is how difficult it is to put birds in my bird bag you almost have to put your shoulder out of joint to reach back there. I usually have to have someones help. http://www.mothertech.net/hunt_day.html


Good boots are the most important thing a birddogger can have, besides good dogs. I had Irish Setters which after a season started to leak really bad and fall apart. Chukar hunting just ate them up. This year I wanted to try something tough and stiff so I went with mountaineering boots. Damn they are stiff and I hope they are tough we will see. I got a good deal on a pair of Lowa Clevedales which are super blue and rad! http://www.lowaboots.com/catalog/ShowBoot.cfm?StockNum=2100256025&Category=1&Type=M

I'm going to blog anyway

I have been thinking of making a blog for quite sometime, I look at other blogs that are dedicated to dogs and hunting...(that's what this one is going to be about). Most are filled with great photos of limits taken and good looking dogs pointing their birds. I am afraid that because I am a horrible shot, that not many limits will be taken by me, and that my lack of photography skills will drive most away, but I don't care I am going to blog anyway.

Here are the highlights of last season