Chuck Robbins photo....

Around age 4 or 5 I decided to breed Bess to a friend’s male. Twice failed but the third time sort of worked like the proverbial charm but... Her litter of one produced without a doubt the worst example of a “bird dog” ever.

As big as a really big setter, Sam was indeed a handsome dog, great personality, loved people, especially kids, might have been the easiest to house break of all but was absolutely clueless to the ideas of pointing birds and despite countless repetitions never did learn to obey even the most basic commands—such as No and Here. To be fair I don’t think stubbornness was the issue.  I do think Sam suffered what would be labeled in the classroom these days a learning disability.

If Sam ever pointed even a single tweety bird I missed it. Though he did run down and kill a skunk but not before getting thoroughly doused. Twenty miles from home I threw him in the trunk and still we had to drive home with all the windows down. Worse I never did get the stink out of the car’s interior, forget the trunk. A couple weeks later, he tried to eat the one and only porcupine he encountered—an ugly affair, in case you wondered, and one pretty much nailed the coffin shut.

When one day, I let him out to clean the kennel he made a few mad laps around the yard, jumped the fence and vanished. I spent a couple days looking for his sorry ass before finally coming to my senses and giving it up as a really bad idea.

Around 7 or 8 Bess began to slow down and seemed the perfect time to add a little dog power to the operation. I tried a couple Britts but neither came close to being a suitable replacement.  During that period a guy I barely knew called and offered to give me a fully trained springer spaniel bitch. “Just too busy to hunt her. She’s a really good dog and deserves better.”

Though I had no desire to own a flushing dog for reasons now long forgotten  I bit.  As turned out, Sophie and I had really brief relationship.  It soon became apparent “fully trained and really good dog” were blatant lies. Right off, I planted several birds, turned her loose and and she failed the abbreviated “hunt test” completely. Thinking maybe she’d had bad experiences with planted birds I took her to a friend’s shooting preserve in the off season. There were plenty of leftover released birds hadn’t been handled for several weeks—pheasants, chukar and quail—and she not only failed to work/ flush a single bird properly she ignored both voice and whistle commands any “fully trained dog” would know.

Blatant lies aside she had the personality of an angry rattler. Whenever I approached her kennel she would run into her box and growl.  I could stop her growling and coax her out by rattling the food pan but the look in her eye left no doubt we were far from becoming best buds.

Then one day as she ate I reached in to fill her water bowl and she bit me on the hand. The bite did not draw blood and I foolishly decided she struck not out of anger but rather surprise or even fear I might take her food away. But a few days later as I set her food pan down she nailed me good, leaving a scar on my forearm I carry to this day decades later. And that as they say was that. I snapped on a lead dragged her to the truck, tossed her in a crate and dropped her in the yard where she came from... And you guessed it I never heard from the guy again. Do you suppose he knew?

That same summer I had another short relationship (like 6 weeks) with a male tri-color setter named Tuck. The details are a bit fuzzy, but I think a friend of uncle Bob who bred setters offered him for free—something about too many dogs? Why he didn’t sell him is more than I know. But when uncle Bob declined I ended up with Tuck. (As they say a sucker is born every minute?)

Anyway between work and fishing, I had little time to run dogs.  But I did manage to get him out a couple evenings. The second evening he trailed a hen pheasant and her half grown chicks a long way in an alfalfa field, pointed staunchly until I flushed them.  “Lookin’ good,” I told uncle Bob, next day. But a couple weeks later, I came home from work and found him dead in the kennel.

Sorry but I can’t shake the feeling the breeder knew too.

To Be Continued...

Photo Courtesy Cornell/Gerrit Vyn

Ringneck specialist that she was, my fondest memory involved the biggest flight of woodcock I have ever encountered and the absolute clinic she put on next day.

Dick, I, and our Britts, Hazel and Bess, had been hunting grouse and woodcock all day in a pouring rain. I can’t recall much about the hunting that day other than we each shot a couple woodcock and I think Dick killed a grouse. Anyway both dogs hunted hard but perhaps because of the downpour neither performed even close to their norm.  Soaked to the skin, in late afternoon, we slogged out of the brush to the car and decided to call it quits.

But about halfway to town it quit raining. As luck would have it we’d just passed the Ball Field—a pet woodcock covert. Dick said, “What the hell we can’t get any wetter lets give it a whirl.”

So we put the tired, wet dogs down and entered the alders surrounding the  Ball Field and five minutes into it Hazel locked up, Bess backed and Dick dropped the ‘cock. But that was it. Shooting hours ended,  we put the dogs at heel, slogged toward the car. But just as we emerged from the alders suddenly it started raining woodcock.  Countless birds were dropping in all around us and of course the dogs went nuts.

We finally got leads on both and dragged them to the car. As Dick turned on the headlights to turn around, the infield was wall to wall woodcock and still more birds were dropping in. Naturally we made plans to return at first light.

The morning dawned dark and gloomy with ominous looking clouds scudding overhead pushed by a strong north wind. Unlike the evening before no woodcock dotted the infield in the headlights.  It seemed to take forever until light enough to shoot.  Then, as quietly as possible we tugged on shooting vests and loaded our guns. For reason escape me we’d left Hazel in her kennel, so I belled up Bess and turned her loose.

She hit the ground running and about halfway through the outfield grass dropped to a crouch, cat-footed to the alders and disappeared.

We hurried along behind, ducked into the flooded alders, slipped and splashed to higher ground and just then somewhere ahead the bell stopped clanging.  It took a little searching but we found Bess locked up staring toward a head-high hemlock thicket.

Dick said, “Take ‘em.”

As I started to circle a little to one side up jumped three birds. I swung on one going high left and dropped it. While Dick dumped one winging through an opening to the right. I swung back on the third towering high overhead and missed.  Dick, who seldom missed,  swatted it down going away.

After fetching the birds Bess moved on, went about 50 yards and locked up again, this time all but hidden behind a big oak blow-down.

Dick said, “Get in the open and I skirt around and try to send  ‘em your way.”

He did and sent the single right at me. I ducked, turned and missed the easy straight-away both barrels.

Dick laughed, “Good shootin’ kid, better luck next time.”

To make a long story short, Bess pretty much moved through the covert going point to point. Dick shot three more times and was limited out (5). Doubtless you readers are dying to hear my shot count, but all you need to know is when we quit at noon Bess had pointed at least 15 times after Dick quit shooting and I had four woodcock total to show for her considerable efforts.

To Be Continued...

Rough Shooting Dogs (Part 2)

My first real bird dog, a Brittany spaniel, was the runt of a litter of field trial hopefuls. The breeder said, “She’s just too small to run with the big dogs so I can let you have her for 35 bucks.” He then sweetened the deal, “If you give me a hand feeding and cleaning kennels, I’ll get her trained up with the rest.”

 Naturally, I accepted and every chance I would put a lead on Bess and ride my bike the couple miles to Lou’s place. He had 15 kennel runs filled with trial dogs, dogs-in-training and for sale.  While Bess might have been too small to run with the big dogs, it soon became apparent she packed a ton of smarts in a small package. Right from the get-go she was always the first to grasp whatever it was Lou wanted. Such that as the yard training progressed I noticed Lou might be having second thoughts but to his credit never once wavered from our agreement.

After about a month Lou began to switch from obedience to birds, even though “quail walks” had been a part of the routine since the first day. He never did train her steady to wing and shot, “said most hunters want the dog to get on downed birds right away, ya lose less cripples.” And it took only a few sessions with planted birds until Lou started running her exclusively on released quail. Most of the time she pointed the covey staunchly and only once in awhile busted singles. I could tell by his grins how pleased which vanished quickly when every now and then she’d take one out obviously on purpose.  “Defiant little bitch ain’t ya.” Then he would get a hold of her by the ears, give her a good shaking, dress her down, make her stand, and then send her again. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Lou said, “Don’t ever let her get away with the bull shit but don’t lose sleep either.  She’ll eventually get tired a being scolded and come around.”

By the time dove season opened he declared, Bess, a “gawldurned bona fide bird dog, you betcha.”

Opening day, Ralph, a neighbor invited me to tag along with he and son, Dick. I don’t know how old Ralph but Dick was WWII veteran and both were something of local hunting and fishing legends. Anyway along with Ralph’s pointer, Ev and Dick’s Britt, Hazel, we waded to the tip of an island in the North Branch Susquehanna, spread out in the sweltering, bee- and mosquito-infested smartweed jungle and began blazing away.  The pressure was on as my two companions seldom missed, sending their dogs to fetch following every salvo.  

Meanwhile I blazed away yanking the trigger at least 50 times with nary a cut feather.  But  when Dick said, “You done yet?” Thanks to Bess I was able to answer, “Hell yes.”

“Does that include the even dozen birds that thievin’ pup a yours stole?”

Oh well, like Lou said, don’t lose sleep over the BS.... Right.

Anyway, Bess, soon learned the hard way stealing birds was not such a honky dory idea when next time Ev took exception and gave her a good thrashing. 

I don’t think she ever weighed over 35 pounds. And doubtless “too small to run with the big dogs,” she could really pick ‘em up and lay ‘em down and didn’t know the word quit. Besides doves we gunned wild ringecks, ruffed grouse and woodcock, once in awhile wild bobwhite quail and jump shot ducks and the occasional goose.  No super dog, still she gave me enough chances that sort of by osmosis I eventually became a passable shot. She excelled at running down cripples and, while Ev cured her of stealing, she fetched anything I shot, fur or feather, though she had to drag in geese.  

An okay grouse and woodcock dog , she excelled on wild ringnecks. During her reign of terror (mid-60s to early 70s)in our neck of woods longtails were plentiful and because Pap knew just about every farmer in the county, finding a place to hunt them was not an issue.

Early on she learned to push running roosters slowly so as not to run them up wild. When the bird stopped she would point and not move until I either flushed it or tapped her on the head. Sometimes the point/move operation went on for several hundred yards. When at last she pinned it, as often as not, it was right under her nose, offering me an easy shot. 

But wild roosters being, well wild, some were slick operators—ran off, flushed wild, no shots.  Then one day she pointed, started slinking ahead and... Suddenly took off, running full bore in a wide circle far out to the front and... Came bounding back our way and slammed a solid point. Now she had the bird pinned between us.  A setup even I couldn’t blow and the rest, as they say, is history.

While I’ve heard of other ringneck specialists pulling this off, no dog of mine ever did. Though to be fair  Bess had way more experience chasing longtails than perhaps all my other dogs combined. About the time she was winding down wild ringnecks in Pennsylvania were all but gone—development, changed farming practices and the PA Game Commission’s ill-advised effort to save ringneck hunting by planting pen-raised birds to supplement the few wild birds remained. A feel good effort served only to nail the coffin shut. Sorry but we witnessed time and again wild roosters defending breeding territories against tame birds which knew no such boundaries and fighting off the competition when they should have been courting hens... I rest my case.

To Be Continued...

Annie the Wirehair fetching a sage chicken

Rough Shooting Dogs
The British term for what we call “bird hunting” is “rough shooting”—stumbling about the brush and fields hoping our dogs either point or flush birds within range allowing us to blast away. As opposed to taking a stand at an assigned “shooting station” and blazing away at driven red-legged partridge  sailing by overhead, meanwhile addled gun handlers  feverishly shove fresh shotshells into the chambers of a matched pair of priceless Purdeys—or whatever brand of so-called “London Best Shotguns” one prefers.  Having never crossed the Atlantic I am told our modus operandi  is frowned upon—the why of which is baffling.

Over here things are not so cut and dried, especially here in the wild west, where it is still sociably acceptable in most circles to shoot grouse off limbs or sage chickens out the truck window. Meanwhile some of us run high class, really expensive dogs , shoot shotguns costing several thousand dollars—high end stuff most of us really can’t afford—and think nothing of tramping countless miles of inhospitable country for the mere chance to collect a handful of feathers.  As opposed to gunning down the costly tame variety, raised in flight pens, as often as not dizzied and tucked under a convenient bush before loosing equally costly dogs and wielding equally costly shotguns—one guy told me it might cost more but the results are guaranteed notwithstanding death marches are not an issue.

We are of course like the Britts, a strange bunch, but having chased a variety of bird dogs over hill and dale for 61 years and and counting I’ve come to the conclusion without the dogs well... For-Get-It.

In the beginning our rough shooting dog was a leggy, black mutt, with pointy ears and a white chest blaze, named Tippy. Father told anyone who would listen Tip was a registered black Lab. Non-hunters of course were clueless, but any hunter worth his salt knew better, which often led to some really loud, heated and entertaining disputes—which I’m pretty sure he lived for but can’t prove.

Whatever Tip was he loved to hunt. He trailed ringnecks silently and tongued (rather yipped pathetically) anything else—rabbits, squirrels, feral cats, skunks, you name it.  Since I was the only one in good enough shape (I played football, basketball and baseball) to keep up I got most of the shooting. Father and uncle Bob abhorred rabbits and squirrels, were interested only in roosters and got to shoot only when a bird flushed and flew back their way. We hunted grouse and woodcock as well but wisely left Tip at home.

My first real bird dog, a Brittany spaniel, was the runt of a litter of field trial hopefuls. The breeder said, “She’s just too small to run with the big dogs so I can let you have her for 35 bucks.” He then sweetened the deal, “If you give me a hand feeding and cleaning kennels, I’ll get her trained up with the rest.”

To Be Continued...