Last Saturday I had the opportunity to volunteer as a guide/dog handler at the annual Southern Utah Youth Fun Hunt. What a great experience for young people to be introduced to hunting upland game with pointing dogs. This was my first time participating and I was really impressed by the organization of an event of this magnitude. My hat goes off to the founders, sponsors and organizers of this year’s youth fun hunt. The kids had a wonderful time and I was told they ran over 200 kids through in two days of hunting.

This is my friend Robert Well’s dog Toby on point during one of the early braces. Robert has been volunteering at this event for several years and invited me to attend this year with my dogs Annie and Abby. Toby was a real joy to watch work and is a classy german shorthair.

Safety was our first concern with each brace we started with a safety talk and went over the rules. When the dogs went on point, the handlers would physically restrain them while the youth hunters were walked around to get ready for the shot.

With the shooters in place another would kick the pheasant out of the bushes. Upon the shot we would release the dogs for the retrieve. We were able to get at least one successful bird shot for each kid. Towards the end of the day a big storm rolled in and the wind cranked up. Kent Forbush is pictured below with the gathering storm.

One of the things I have enjoyed the most about trainng my hunting dogs, is making new friends and hunting buddies. Dog people tend to stick together but hunting dog folks are an even tighter group. If you are trying to train a new hunting dog it is essential that you find others to train with and to learn from. Not only from a knowledge sharing or educational level, but also for moral support when things go awry. At times training a hunting dog can be frustrating and many common mistakes can be avoided by training with others.

I had a chance to make a new friend this past month in my little town in Utah. I drove by this house under construction every day on the way to the training grounds. I couldn’t help but notice the guy had a Tri-tronics decal in the back window of his truck. I knew he had to be a hunting dog owner. I stopped by one day and introduced myself, and it turned out he was a hunter and a german shorthair owner. We have been hunting a few times since then and I’m glad to have another hunting buddy to learn from.

If you live in a small town you may be surprised that you are not alone. You can sometimes find fellow hunting dog people online on forums like Gun Dog Forum or Shorthairs.net. I recently discovered an online forum for specifically for hunters and field trialers in my area called Utah Bird Dog Forum. I even found a new vet by stopping and talking to a lady I spotted walking her shorthairs, turned out she worked for a vet up the road. Haven’t been to another vet since.

Guided a group of pheasant hunters this week at Rooster Valley Pheasants in Annabella, UT. The weather was beautiful and the dogs were dialed in and finding birds. There were 12 shooters in this large group of hunters, so Russ split them into 3 hunting groups. I took this small group and worked the canal and the river along the Northeast edge of the property. We had a good safe hunt with some good shooters who only missed a few roosters. I think we ended up with around 25 birds at the end of the hunt. Some real nice guys and a great day of hunting pheasant.

I really enjoy the opportunity to get my young dogs out on some more birds and get valuable experience. The roosters were running on us a bit more than usual and the dogs didn’t take long to figure it out. We had to hustle a few time to catch the runners but we only had one give us the slip. Abby looked sharp and was holding her points very well. The wind was just right and she was slamming on point about 20-30 feet in front of the bird. Abby and Annie fought a bit over retrieving but they always brought the bird to hand. Annie had a great find on a wounded bird that lit across the river. She hadn’t seen the rooster dropped so I sent her blind across the river. She was hesitant at first but swam the cold water and finally found the bird 50 feet back in the brambles. I was so proud. Not bad for a couple of young dogs. Annie (Brittany) is 18 months old and Abby (Shorthair) will be two in April.

I must have tried on about 50 hunting vests before I found the Pella Bird ‘N Lite Strap Vest at my local Cabela’s store. I was getting sick of the $10 cheapo vest that I purchased at Wal-Mart. With only a bird or two in the bag the collar would cut into my neck and shoulders like a knife. I knew I wanted a strap-style hunting vest but I couldn’t find one that felt natural on my back. I was surprised at the variety available and the insane pricing of some of the more popluar vests. Many times it seems like your paying an extra hundred bucks for the brand name.

The past few weeks I have been beating up my new Pella hunting vest and filling it to the brim with pheasants. I can comfortably fit about 6 big roosters in the back, a water bottle and 2-3 boxes of shells in the front pockets. The weight was distributed quite well especially with the extra wide waste strap. I’m not sure if this is a product that is easy to find in most sporting goods stores, but at my Cabela’s in Utah this was the only one left in the store. I’m glad I stumbled onto it, and at $80 it was reasonably priced. It even has the capacity for a camel-back style water bladder, which I picked up at Wal-Mart for under $20. I would recommend this product to anyone who hunts for more than a couple hours at a time. You can click on over to Cabela’s to check it out for yourself.

Over the holidays I was lucky enough to enjoy some pheasant hunting with my two Brothers-in-Law Kyle Simmons and Phil Cherry. Phil is raising a pair of lab pups and is an avid shooter, but this was Kyle’s first time hunting pheasants.

About 20 minutes into the hunt Abby set up on a nice point and held tight. Kyle moved up from the right side to kick the bird out of the cover.

Kyle squared up on the flush and squeezed off a very nice shot. There were feathers flying everywhere and Kyle was all smiles. Abby retrieved the bird to hand and I was very pleased with her performance.

We had a cold snap and a pretty good snow a few days ago that kept me and the dogs from getting out much. Actually, the dogs don’t care about the cold but I try to avoid bird hunting in a white out. The weather warmed up enough on Monday to take a few of our friends out pheasant hunting. Annie performed admirably retrieving several pheasant to hand for me. This big beautiful rooster was the best of her retrieves and she marked it nicely. She had to work efficiently to beat Jared Moss’ shorthairs to the retrieves.

Since she was just 10 weeks old Annie has had a nack for finding stinky smelly things. During our hunting today she brought me a squashed racoon roadkill, a chunk of smelly deer hide and a rotten rabbit’s leg. Each time she brings something I try to praise her for a good find and then get her back to work finding birds. Towards the end of hunt she brought me what appeared to be an old dead hen pheasant from a previous days hunt. When I took it from her, I found that it was still warm with obvious shot marks. Turns out that she had found a wounded bird that some hooligans had shot earlier in the day. They were poaching pheasants on the pheasant farm from a nearby farming road, shooting from their truck. I was pleased that Annie smelled and located this bird and retrieved it to hand.

This past week Annie and I were able to tag along as co-guides at the Rooster Valley Pheasant Farm. The owner’s son Wade was kind enough to let Annie and I tag along with him and his very talented GSP Whitney. We guided a small group of hunters through some great cover along the river and up onto the sage brush flats. Wade had warned me before hand that Whitney was a retrieving fool and that Annie would likely be a spectator. Lucky for us the first point was solid with Annie and Whitney pinning the birds in. Even luckier two birds flushed, a hen and a rooster and both were shot. Annie bolted after the second bird and Whitney got the first so it worked out great.

As we continued hunting Annie was able to get a few more retrieves as Whitney was out of position or on another point. It was fun to watch the seasoned GSP work those pheasant and I believe Annie learned a bit from her. I was especially pleased that Annie behaved nicely and once even retrieved a bird to hand for one of the guests. Usually, she will only bring the birds to me. A big thanks to Wade and Russ at Rooster Valley for letting me and Annie get some more birds under our belts. We hope to get out on some wild chukar this week while the weather is still nice. Abby’s heat cycle should be finished by the weekend so I’ll be back to two hunting dogs instead of one.

Yesterday we made a visit to our neighbor Russ Peterson who runs Rooster Valley Pheasants gamebird farm. Annie is just finishing her basic hunting dog training after spending almost a whole year with Chris Colt of Cove Mountain Kennels. I asked Russ to plant 4 birds in his fields for Annie so we could work on her retrieving and pointing skills. I was very pleased with her birdwork as it was starting to sprinkle and the wind was swirling around every which way. She was quartering nicely and pointed solid on her first bird. I made a nice shot and she was right on the bird. She took a little coaxing to bring it to me, but I let her hold it a few minutes after she came to me. Finally, she simply laid the bird at my feet without any wrestling or problems. The next bird was a little harder as it flushed over an irrigation canal and dropped out of site when I shot it. Annie couldn’t find it, so I called her back and sent her out a second time and she failed again. I called her back a third time and she followed my hand signal a little better and found the bird. She retrieved the bird nicely across the canal and dropped it at my feet after a little praise. The third bird I wounded and Annie ran it down in an open field and retrieved well. We flushed a big rooster but lost it over the river, I was pleased that Annie swam the river and tried to track him down. We ended up with 3 birds in the bag and had a great time. Judging that Annie is barely one year old I am excited about her potential as a long-time hunting partner. It was especially fun to have my son Travis tagging along on the hunt with me.