Another warm up coming!!!☀️☀️☀️

A5 Sweet 16 said:
Nice! Great to have those moments on video. Watching the dogs do their thing is super fun!
Here's our latest.
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Great video A5! Does Ace always stop prior to him flushing? If so that is pretty awesome, love his energy and excitement you can tell he love hunting and pleasing you. I dont know how many times I've been down on myself for poor shooting in the fields and stop to hunt a ditch and find on e with birds and tag out quickly. They can your day in a heart beat. Thanks for sharing.
 
Miforester said:
Great video A5! Does Ace always stop prior to him flushing? If so that is pretty awesome, love his energy and excitement you can tell he love hunting and pleasing you. I dont know how many times I've been down on myself for poor shooting in the fields and stop to hunt a ditch and find on e with birds and tag out quickly. They can your day in a heart beat. Thanks for sharing.
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No, he doesn't always pause, but he does it more than my previous dogs did. And that last one on this video was very uncommon. His longest pause ever.
 
Nice video A5 and thanks for posting. I enjoy watching what I will call home-made videos, for lack of a better word, of a guy and his dog. The ditch angle was great for the camera to pick up Ace. Good job. I still get amazed how much nerve a rooster has to hold that tight with danger a few feet away. I've watched some of your other videos and it appears to me that Ace has improved this season at the idea that you and he are a team. He is a fun dog to hunt behind. Thanks for the vid.
 
Pheasants & a Lab said:
Nice video A5 and thanks for posting. I enjoy watching what I will call home-made videos, for lack of a better word, of a guy and his dog. The ditch angle was great for the camera to pick up Ace. Good job. I still get amazed how much nerve a rooster has to hold that tight with danger a few feet away. I've watched some of your other videos and it appears to me that Ace has improved this season at the idea that you and he are a team. He is a fun dog to hunt behind. Thanks for the vid.
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Thanks! This was Ace's 3rd season. He'll be 3 in April. We don't train to a high level (as you can probably tell), but that's just how we roll. He's definitely improved, as you say, & nearly lives up to my personal expectations in every sense. Keeping track of me, staying closer, understanding that ultimately those birds go in MY vest. :LOL: Recently he started occasionally stopping (briefly) to check my location WHEN HE'S ON A BIRD. To make sure I'm with him & that I understand something's up. That's something neither of my other dogs ever did, & it's pretty neat. We have a blast together!

As for a rooster's nerve...they are amazing. Especially when you consider how jumpy they can be at other times. That last bird in the video came back without tail feathers, & I know Ace didn't pull them out chasing him down. I halfway suspect the bird may have ejected them immediately prior to flushing as a defense mechanism. Years ago, my first springer Walt was running down a wounded bird out on the open snow. He was a few feet behind the bird, closing quickly, & all of a sudden all the birds tail feathers just fell out onto the snow. An ornithologist told me they can eject them. I hadn't known that.
 
Never have heard of ejecting tail feathers before...are you pulling our chain A5? It isn't April 1st. Might have to google that one. As hard as they pull out after dead, I have doubts, but I have more than once have a live bird escape me and left me with a handful of butt & tail feathers...once the bird then got aireborn and flew away....my dog retreived him to me and after the molting of his tail feathers in my grip, the dog was in pursuit again, but could quite get him before he got up...I had laid my gun down, so I just watched him go.
 
It took me a moment to figure out that there were two different entities posting videos to this thread and that they were both running springers. Is that correct? Anyway, as far as quality, both are plenty good for me. I particularly enjoy the dog work. It took me a while to figure out, in the 2nd video, when you said you were hunting "ditches", that you were talking about bar ditches within the road right-of-way. I believe SD is the only state that allows this and therefore I'm always a bit nervous doing it when hunting SD, but it can be extremely productive. You really have to have control of your dog as the unexpected vehicle winging down the road at 50mph isn't uncommon. I also had to check SD game laws to see if shooting a bird that flushed from the bar ditch but was shot over adjacent private land was legal. Yes it is, as long as the bird originated from the bar ditch/road right of way. Its always interesting hunting SD!
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
As for a rooster's nerve...they are amazing. Especially when you consider how jumpy they can be at other times. That last bird in the video came back without tail feathers, & I know Ace didn't pull them out chasing him down. I halfway suspect the bird may have ejected them immediately prior to flushing as a defense mechanism. Years ago, my first springer Walt was running down a wounded bird out on the open snow. He was a few feet behind the bird, closing quickly, & all of a sudden all the birds tail feathers just fell out onto the snow. An ornithologist told me they can eject them. I hadn't known that.
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I agree they roosters have nerves of steel. Interesting info about he rooster being able to release his tail feathers. This past year in SD i had two occurrences where we had a winged bird pinned and I reached down to grab them only to have they start moving, my slow reflexes both time came up with tails feathers and came out like a hot knife thru butter. It would not surprise me that they could do this.
 
Eject them?? Kind of like a porky shooting quills?? Might be April 1st Remy. Not in my bird book. Put a smile on me.
 
Wind River said:
Eject them?? Kind of like a porky shooting quills?? Might be April 1st Remy. Not in my bird book. Put a smile on me.
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Per Dr. K.C. Jensen, Dept. of Wildlife & Fisheries at SDSU, in 2011.
"Yes, birds can drop feathers easily - this is called “shock molt” and is an adaptation that improves survival by dropping feathers, and hopefully (for the pheasant) leaving the predator with a mouth full of feathers rather than the bird! I have seen this at times with dead birds, although more often with doves than with pheasants. I am not sure of the sequence of physiological mechanisms that cause this to happen, but the end result is the production of an chemical signal that relaxes and loosens the attachments of the small muscles where the feathers attach (erector pili muscles)."
 
This is soooo interesting. I began to rack my 66 year old failing memory bank and I believe it to be true. Countless times a bird "somewhat downed" came back in my dogs mouth with no tail feathers. I would go out in search because I felt it was a nice tail. I would say 100% of the time (and this is several times a year the way I shoot) that BOTH tail feathers were missing. I can't believe that every on retrieve the dog bit or stepped on both tail feathers. This makes sense to me and I am going to believe it as it adds to the allure that a wild rooster is the greatest upland bird to chase and harvest! :) All hail GWR
 
Maybe extract easier, but not eject. Like a SxS. Still takes a mouthful of tail feathers to remove them. Talk to people that catch them at game farms or raise them. Never grab them by the tail, ruins the "trophy"
 
Wind River said:
Maybe extract easier, but not eject. Like a SxS. Still takes a mouthful of tail feathers to remove them. Talk to people that catch them at game farms or raise them. Never grab them by the tail, ruins the "trophy"
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Re-read my post from earlier this morning. It's what prompted my question to the expert I quoted above. I saw a rooster eject nearly every last tail feather with my dog in hot pursuit. No, not like a bunch of bottle rockets, but they fell out, all at once, as he was running, with zero outside force applied. Didn't save him that time though. 😉
 
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On a quick search, I read that if feathers are "pulled out" (not broken-off) they will grow back...I didn't know that. I also read that some birds do, A5 said, "shock molt" as follows:

"A common problem in blue scale quail is fright. Similar to when a lizard drops its tail, it is a clever defense mechanism. When a predator grabs the bird, a bunch of feathers drop out, leaving a live quail and an annoyed predator. When someone picks up the blue scales the same happens. A good way to prevent this from happening is to only handle these birds for check-ups or emergencies."

It sounds like it is a "thing". I really don't know much about pheasants other that where to find them, what they eat and how they taste.
 
remy3424 said:
On a quick search, I read that if feathers are "pulled out" (not broken-off) they will grow back...I didn't know that.
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Yes, several times I've shot fully mature birds (possibly even 2nd year birds) who had 1 or both of the primary tail feathers (the 2 "long" ones) just growing back, only a few inches long. All other feathers appeared normal for a mature bird.
 
Golden Hour said:
Another great clip, dakotasj!! I am enamored by your pups and how they appear to be synchronized at times. Anyway, thanks so much for sharing!!
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Thanks! Rocky is 10 and is slowing down some. Reece is 3 and starting to figure things out. We are going to work on his retrieving during off season.

This ditch is half mile long, lots of years the area next to it is not hayed. Birds have always liked it especially if the weather is bad and lots of snow.
One of my favorite spots.
 
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