Quail & Chuks

The Last few hunts have been a riot. I had some great points and some nice shots. My shooting is getting a lot better but I still need a lot of work. The dogs did great. Rip is a hard pheasant dog, she jus runs to big. So I took her out by myself and we didnt get anything. She did bump a big ole rooster. Louie on the other had killed it and gave us great shots at a few coveys of quail. I mangage to bring down a pair and my Dennis hit one. But what I have realized while I like pheasant & quail hunting nothing is like chukar hunting!!! I am a chukar hunter first. I love it, the physical challange, the steep terrain, to having a big running dog that works the ridges so well

Louie My Great Friend

Louie is the kind of dog that give it his all every hunt, actually with everything he does. Last year I almost lost him to a snare trap while out hunting. It scared me badly, but it also made me greatful for the friend that he is to me. This season I have thought over an over how lucky I have been to hunt with him and have him at home. He is still young and hopefully I have him for many years to come. I think it is important to step back and look at what you have and be greatful for your best friend/hunting bud. The season is not over and we are making it the best one yet.

The Saddle

Old Haunt revisited

Hit up an old haunt I havent hunted for a few season. It paid off. Lots of birds and the dogs killed it. Louie retreived 2 birds to hand and I was able to shoot birds over solid points made by both dogs. Had a great day. All pics were taken by my Iphone. Not to bad really.

If you listen you can hear chukar calling all around us.

SportDog TEK Review

I feel that I should add more info about the TEK. I have been using the unit Steve sent me the past few weeks. Hunting season has began and I have been hunting in both the woods and wide open spaces. First off, I love this thing. I have no complaints about it, this unit is preforming just as Sportdog says it does. In the woods I have noticed that my update rate slows down to about 7 seconds. In the wide open it continues with the 2.5-3 second update.

The only issue that I have had is my compass becomes de-calibrated during my hunt. Which is can be annoying but it is so easy to calibrate that I just do it and it works great. It happens at least once per hunt. In the woods it was more often.

I am getting a 2nd collar to track both my dogs at once, and as the season continues I will be posting more info on the TEK and how it continues to function throughout the season

Season Begins

Huns were the bird but when the dogs pointed Chukars took flight and in a puff of feathers one dropped. The dogs and I loved evey second of it. When Rip found that dead bird you would have thought she took a hit of speed. She was on cloud 9 running with the bird in her mouth. Start of hopefully a great season.

More TEK Info & Gun Dog Supply

OK I have had the TEK for a while now and it has been a bit of a roller coaster. Some days I love it, other days I am ready to get a garmin. My first handheld has serious issues and stopped getting a gps lock, or it would take a good 40 minutes for it to get a lock. So SportDog sent me a new one free of charge. BTW they have been amazing to work with so has Steve Snell at GDS where I orded the TEK from. The new handheld has no issue with GPS but it loses communication with the collar all the time and its average communication rate is around 30-40 seconds. I am not very happy. I dropped Steve at GDS an email about the comm issue and he is sending me out a brand new unit. I will never buy from another online store again. Steve has been great. I'm excited to get the new unit and put it to work the season is fast approaching

SportDog TEK First Glance

I got my Sportdog TEK and so far after a morning of playing around with it I really like it. First off I want to put it out there that this unit seems to be built as an ecollar first and a tracking unit second. What I mean by that is, while it uses gps technology to track your dog it is not a gps like the Garmin is and if that is what you want, you’re not going to be happy with the Sportdog. This is a dog tool only. It is really easy to navigate through and set up. You almost don’t need to read the manual. If you have any sort of experience using a gps or a tool like this you will figure it out fast. Now there are options that I have not even tried yet but to set up a dog profile, get the ecollar tuned in and the gps working is a no brainer. Sportdog did a really good job designing an easy to use interface.

Ecollar
The Ecollar is a very robust. I was able to fine tune the stimulation for each of my dogs. Rip is ultra sensitive and I have her set on Low with her at level 3. Louie is set to Mid and also on level 3. It gives you the option to dial it in even more which I think I will do with Rip as the jump from 2 to 3 is quite the jump; I think I could find a perfect stimulation between them. Yes, it gives you that option. I love how many options it has. It also gives many stimulation option, consistent, momentary, rising, tone, and vibrate. I am very impressed with the ecollar.

The actual ecollar itself is pretty big. I was a little worried because Rip is so small and it does look pretty bulky on her but not much more than the 2 collars (tracker & TT) I had strapped to her last year. The strap is thick, I mean thick! And will last for many seasons. I do not love the charging ports but thought I would put some electrical tape over them to protect the rubber from being ripped off.

Tracking/GPS
This aspect of the unit is not like the Garmin at all. It does exactly what it says it does and tells you where your dog is and which direction they are moving. It updates pretty good, but not as fast as I would like. I would say its about 5-10 seconds. Not the 2.5 that it says. I took Louie out for a run at the park with it. He took a big cast and it said he was 160 yards out, he turned and headed east, which it updated pretty quickly then he turned and headed full speed back towards me. He was about 15 feet from me and it still said he was 100 yards out, then 80, 50, and then 10. It seemed slow to me. A dog can really move fast. The point alert it not real loud but the vibrate helps you notice, I like that is has both. Overall the verdict is still out but if it works in the field like it did at the park I will be happy. I also have it set up to stimulation on the tracking screen, which is really nice. No toggling through back and forth to correct the dog just one button and the dog is corrected.

Overall first impressions are: Ecollar portion is great, GPS is nice and works like it should but the update rate was not as fast as I hope. The unit is built very well, and the design is awesome and super easy to set up and use. I still need to do some real world testing but from the little use so far I am pleased.