Bonus Bird Today

[Carguy2Banker]

I have some exclusive access to a very heavy cover CRP field. The problem with it is it is too dense to find down birds without a good dog or some good luck (probably both) and lots of time looking.
Last weekend, 4 of us hunted it and got 8, but only found 7. We knew the lost bird wasn't hit hard and was probably running.
Today we tried it again and guess what happened?!! We shot 4 but bagged 5.
My lab found a sick but very much alive bird. We opened it up and you could see the wing wounds and infection. Too bad that it had to go in the trash.

 

[gettinbirdie]

Last year we did a walk in a field in ND behind a couple of guys with a bunch of labs. We pushed two shorthairs through there and recovered 4 crippled pheasant(and shot 4 more roosters-I guess it was a 2 for 1 special!) It happens I guess..

 

[cheesy]

It happened. Twice this weekend in SD we knocked birds down. Marked well. But couldn’t find them after thorough search. After the push, took my shorthairs back to the mark, first one was dead as a door nail and my dog immediately found it. Second one we had seen running after the shot so we left it. Went back a few minutes later and pushed to the edge of the corn we were in. Couldn’t see exactly how it went down, but my other shorthair comes running back with a very much alive bird to hand.

 

[Carguy2Banker]

I have had a dog, even my current one find birds like this on the same day before, but never a full week removed. Fairly common for me to go back through an area later looking for an earlier downed birds.
I'm this case, I figured a coyote would have had lunch in the past week.
Regardless, we can all agree; dogs are awesome and never cease to amaze us. Not sure I'll ever be able to without a hunt without one.