Opening Day weekend Quail and Ducks with Scout !
At just a couple days over 10 months old Scout, my Nephew Jeremy and I headed to Wister for the ducks opener weekend. Keep in mind that Scout has not smelled or seen anything but Mourning and Eursian Doves. After an hour of scouting ducks on Friday morning we headed out to try and find some quail. First quail hunt for Scout. First field we find some , nephew drops one but its not dead. I bring Scout in, giving her "Dead bird" command , she finds it deep in nasty tumbleweed , brings it to me. I gave a few minutes for Scout to get a snootfull of Quail. We kick up a couple more birds and I down one. I head straight at it and so does Scout; before I go 10 yards Scout is on her way back towards me with bird in her a mouth. Im kinda shocked right here; like" Wow she has that bird in her mouth. " Only minutes after her first encounter with Quail she killed it ! By the end of the morning she found multiple blind retrieves and found every bird harvested.
Duck opener started out not so good, turned comical but ended up great ! In training Scout I haven't had a place to train her with decoys in water, only in the backyard and schoolyard down the street from the house. In hindsight, I realized I had never thrown a decoy on the ground like you would in a pond. Scout decided that our friend Jim was throwing decoys to be retrieved, LOL, after a brief reminder to not mess with those we are good.
First 2 ducks to be shot over Scout are Hen Pintails. She doest see them fall from our field of view. I take her to the waters edge, send her and she veers a little left towards some decoys but winds the hen, as she gets to it she balks for a minute at grabbing the bird. This is her first duck, its alive and is way bigger that any live bird she has seen up to this point. After some encouragement she grabs it but doesn't want to give it up; after some correction she gives it up. Now for the second bird that is 25-30 yards away by now. I line her up, she sees it easily and is off, I headed for the dike. As I get up on the dike she is coming behind me and gives up the bird with just a little rejection.
10 Teal later and Scout is performing amazing; even a retrieve of 85 yards or so of a bird she clearly saw get shot and fall on the water but by the time Scout gets to it has been blown by the wind into some bushes. She veers a little left as she approaches with the wind in her face and goes right in and comes out a few seconds later with the still alive Teal.
We end the day with only one lost duck. My friend wounded a Teal, I finished it off but it landed in a big patch of Tules. I took Scout to downed bird but she couldn't find the bird. Problem there was her trying to leap over the Tules rather than move in more methodically. Oh well some thing come with time.
Biggest bummer of the day was losing my phone in the pond with pictures of Scouts first quail and first ducks !!!
Yesterday was a fantastic day !! We finished the day with
At just a couple days over 10 months old Scout, my Nephew Jeremy and I headed to Wister for the ducks opener weekend. Keep in mind that Scout has not smelled or seen anything but Mourning and Eursian Doves. After an hour of scouting ducks on Friday morning we headed out to try and find some quail. First quail hunt for Scout. First field we find some , nephew drops one but its not dead. I bring Scout in, giving her "Dead bird" command , she finds it deep in nasty tumbleweed , brings it to me. I gave a few minutes for Scout to get a snootfull of Quail. We kick up a couple more birds and I down one. I head straight at it and so does Scout; before I go 10 yards Scout is on her way back towards me with bird in her a mouth. Im kinda shocked right here; like" Wow she has that bird in her mouth. " Only minutes after her first encounter with Quail she killed it ! By the end of the morning she found multiple blind retrieves and found every bird harvested.
Duck opener started out not so good, turned comical but ended up great ! In training Scout I haven't had a place to train her with decoys in water, only in the backyard and schoolyard down the street from the house. In hindsight, I realized I had never thrown a decoy on the ground like you would in a pond. Scout decided that our friend Jim was throwing decoys to be retrieved, LOL, after a brief reminder to not mess with those we are good.
First 2 ducks to be shot over Scout are Hen Pintails. She doest see them fall from our field of view. I take her to the waters edge, send her and she veers a little left towards some decoys but winds the hen, as she gets to it she balks for a minute at grabbing the bird. This is her first duck, its alive and is way bigger that any live bird she has seen up to this point. After some encouragement she grabs it but doesn't want to give it up; after some correction she gives it up. Now for the second bird that is 25-30 yards away by now. I line her up, she sees it easily and is off, I headed for the dike. As I get up on the dike she is coming behind me and gives up the bird with just a little rejection.
10 Teal later and Scout is performing amazing; even a retrieve of 85 yards or so of a bird she clearly saw get shot and fall on the water but by the time Scout gets to it has been blown by the wind into some bushes. She veers a little left as she approaches with the wind in her face and goes right in and comes out a few seconds later with the still alive Teal.
We end the day with only one lost duck. My friend wounded a Teal, I finished it off but it landed in a big patch of Tules. I took Scout to downed bird but she couldn't find the bird. Problem there was her trying to leap over the Tules rather than move in more methodically. Oh well some thing come with time.
Biggest bummer of the day was losing my phone in the pond with pictures of Scouts first quail and first ducks !!!
Yesterday was a fantastic day !! We finished the day with
