Day in day out. I would consider pointers are not equipped to handled pheasants. I have always been a pointer guy, but I was a quail hunter first, hunted on three or four trips a year. Pointers were always effective early on, and I had good success late in the snow. Thru the bulk of the season, there were great days and impossible days. I enjoy shooting pointed roosters, But I find a careful lab will outperform them thru the bulk of the season. Now quail, with a rooster here or there? Pointer! I find the same with sharptails, and prairie chickens. Labs are more consistent, but my blood pressure goes up with a staunch point at a distance!
best time for pointing dogs
- Thread starter jdk529
- Start date
Rooster Roaster
Banned
I take my Drahthaars out to SD every November on public and a couple farms (not "pheasant operation" farms) and we always find, point, and retrieve our limits. I could never go back to flushers when my pointing dogs are doing the job and giving me so much enjoyment.
BRITTMAN
Well-known member
If your dog pointed 10-15 wild pheasants right after 3labs went though the word is DREAM
Nope. Sorry your pointer can pass muster.
Uncle Buck
New member
BS. I hunt pointers all season long shoot birds every day over points. Really sick of the myth.
Uncle Buck
New member
I agree, but I do not mind hunting the large fields. In mid season, the birds can be busted up and all over the field, particularly if the weather is nice and the birds are fed. Can be just about anywhere and not all bunched up, even in the middle of the afternoon. .
wesslpointer
New member
RIGHT ON!!!!!! Uncle Buck My dogs can get in the thick stuff as well as point Birds on the edges plus have a labs coat to protect them as well as keep them warm. when it comes to uplands a Wesslpointer can do any thing a lab can do.
birdshooter
Well-known member
Agreed.
Pointers will learn to handle pheasants if they are raised hunting them along with proper training. If they are from good hunting stock, they will learn to handle the Wily Pheasants ways. Of course some wild birds will simply be unapproachable by any breed of dog. Nature of the bird.
I also agree with Uncle Buck, but I also believe you have to hunt cover that your dog is best at. In a CRP, native prairie, draws filled with plums, wheat, milo stubble and even corn stubble I's choose a pointer any day. If I were to hunt lots of cattails and thicker CRP and winter cover I would chose a lab but by the time there's that much snow I'm hunting south of the snow line for quail and pheasants. If I had to pick the two best months for pointers in the Dakotas I would pick October and November. The birds are spread out that time of the year and the shorter CRP stills has lots of birds because the snow hasn't covered it yet. I have had excellent trips hunting with two or three people working CRP near grain.
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wesslpointer
New member
wesslpointer
New member
Versatile
This is why I hunt Versatile pointers " Wesslpointer's" you can keep them in on a "force march hunt" yet they have the guts to get in the deep stuff and you have a pointing dog to let out to hunt the more open cover.
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I hate boot polishers, mostly I hate dogs that follow me into the dense cover and let me break the trail! Roosters are unpredictable, a lot of great pointers I hunted with, will outflank a running bird, and come back toward you to stop the advance, since the bird has no idea where or how many dogs there are, they hold better, if they fly, there is a good chance, they will give a shot opportunity, might even fly back over you! All good hunting dogs learn keep the gunner in mind, no shot, no game, they learn that quickly. My thought is with flushing dogs, they are more methodical, but I want to see them in front! not riding drag. Gives me a feeling that we have not passed birds, or had birds run back through us. pointers, at a greater distance, are hard to find, in dense cover, the bird may not wait for us to get there, dogs are prone to cast, meaning they take straight away cover, like a fence line, all the way out, and then work back. A desirable trait with quail, huns, prairie grouse, chukars, but if you hunt public, pressured pheasants, who live by their wits, the luxury of a pointed bird might cost you a lot of shots. I also with either style dogs, insist of silence, no blubbering on the whistle, hawk screams, beepers, strategy pow-wows in the middle of the field, slammed car doors, gun actions being worked, dog be-rating, little or no noise except the cackle of a flushed bird! With any dogs, I'll take my chances, no dog is very difficult to overcome!
reddog
Well-known member
Maybe its just the way I am, and why I hunt alone. My dog takes me hunting. He leads, I follow. The only time there is need for correction, is at property lines, or when Im tired and need to get back to the truck. By GSP standards, I have a pretty wide ranging dog. Not EP wide, but pushing the boundaries..
As I age, I like to see my dog cast 100 or 150 yards out and work back to me..
If I ever have a dog that only ranges 5 -10yards, its time to shoot me.. and I grew up with Labs (35 years)... good ones.. Its just different..
As I age, I like to see my dog cast 100 or 150 yards out and work back to me..
If I ever have a dog that only ranges 5 -10yards, its time to shoot me.. and I grew up with Labs (35 years)... good ones.. Its just different..
519vx
Member
Agree about the hunting alone part, not so much about the distance/ranging part. Sounds like I would have been dead a long time ago if we hunted together Reddog.
I hunt flushers, and I keep them close. Close not because they are lazy, but because that is where I want them. 35 yards might work for some guys, and maybe it's because i'm a tad slow, but it takes me a second or two to get on a bird once my dog puts it up. 35 yards plus 1 second pretty much puts that bird out of range for me.
I also don't get around as well as most guys because of an injury from years ago so I don't cover as much ground as some. The places I hunt most of the time are very, very heavily pressured public grounds. I can't compete with the guys with good pointers that can let them run 150 yard patterns across the big fields. Instead, I hunt more tactically and look for edges, small pieces of heavy cover, etc. where it is often to my advantage that the dogs work close or precisely. I shot a rooster last fall in South Dakota out of a spot of taller grass no bigger than a kitchen table top because I directed Sage to that tiny piece of cover.
It's just what works for me, and I train my dogs according to the way I like to hunt. Its about me and my dogs, nobody else. To each his own.
Back to the original post question - I hunted SD for my first time ever last year and I hunted the end of the first week of the season. I was very satisfied with my hunt but very few crops were harvested and a I saw just a ton of birds in and out of the crop fields. I watched a guy harvest a sunflower field adjacent to where I was hunting and i was just amazed at the number of birds that piled out of there when the combine came by.
So from a rookie, look at it two ways. Hunt early in the season and the birds aren't yet as educated and there are just plain more birds around, but they are distributed over a LOT of cover. The later in the season, the birds are more educated and there are less of them but they would be more concentrated than early on, especially if there was a little snow cover.
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reddog
Well-known member
Agree about the hunting alone part, not so much about the distance/ranging part. Sounds like I would have been dead a long time ago if we hunted together Reddog.
I hunt flushers, and I keep them close. Close not because they are lazy, but because that is where I want them. 35 yards might work for some guys, and maybe it's because i'm a tad slow, but it takes me a second or two to get on a bird once my dog puts it up. 35 yards plus 1 second pretty much puts that bird out of range for me.
I also don't get around as well as most guys because of an injury from years ago so I don't cover as much ground as some. The places I hunt most of the time are very, very heavily pressured public grounds. I can't compete with the guys with good pointers that can let them run 150 yard patterns across the big fields. Instead, I hunt more tactically and look for edges, small pieces of heavy cover, etc. where it is often to my advantage that the dogs work close or precisely. I shot a rooster last fall in South Dakota out of a spot of taller grass no bigger than a kitchen table top because I directed Sage to that tiny piece of cover.
It's just what works for me, and I train my dogs according to the way I like to hunt. Its about me and my dogs, nobody else. To each his own.
Back to the original post question - I hunted SD for my first time ever last year and I hunted the end of the first week of the season. I was very satisfied with my hunt but very few crops were harvested and a I saw just a ton of birds in and out of the crop fields. I watched a guy harvest a sunflower field adjacent to where I was hunting and i was just amazed at the number of birds that piled out of there when the combine came by.
So from a rookie, look at it two ways. Hunt early in the season and the birds aren't yet as educated and there are just plain more birds around, but they are distributed over a LOT of cover. The later in the season, the birds are more educated and there are less of them but they would be more concentrated than early on, especially if there was a little snow cover.
Steve,
It wouldnt be a problem if we hunted together...(and we will, if I can get you out there more) because I would go my way, and you would go your way. None of this organized march across the country side. No different than I hunt with any body else. I go my way, and they go their, we may cross paths, but that would be about it. I think it confuses the birds that way..
Again, its all about what you want, and train for.... Over the last 45 years, I know Ive shot more over my labs than my pointers, but I get so much more enjoyment out of watching the pointers cast.. The sooner you figure out youre not going to get ever bird in the field, the more enjoyable the hunt gets.
1pheas4
Moderator
This works with working behind other hunters too. Birds will often run ahead of hunters and their dogs, then circle back/behind. Sometimes the best pheasant hunting can be just after a group pushes through a field
.little guy
New member
Try to time it so that crops are all in and there is 3-4 inches of fresh snow. Let me know how it goes! In all seriousness, we typically only shoot pointed birds and don't have any trouble getting plenty of birds for the freezer. Yeah we shoot a few wild flushes mixed in, but with a methodical, quiet (no beepers or bells) approach, a small hunting party (2-3 guys max), and a good pointing dog, we get more than enough chances to be happy.