Final weekend of the Iowa season is here! Post results.

[remy3424]

I hope everyone has a chance to finish the season strong over the next 2 days. Post your weekend & season results, experiences/observations and compare to past seasons. Maybe throw up some of your favorite pics from this season. Bird pics, dog pics, hunter pics, gun pics, outside pics, postem all! Have fun!

 

[remy3424]

Well, the final weekend was a little tough here, Didn't hit the crp that produced 14 last saturday morning, This saturday 3 of us got 3 and today my buddy and I hit two small new spots and we each got one to end the season. My old GSP was on injured reserve today, he hunted hard yesterday, maybe a bit too much. It was a great season overall, weather was good, bird numbers were up and I shot very well. My buddy's GSP is picking up the slack for my dog as he is needing to go part-time. We did have 2 parcels of CRP that were baled, but we did find a few new places to put in the rotation. My season total bird count was 60, 3 more than last season. Now time to get some things done around the house, clean-up the truck and my garage, reload for parairie dogs and reload another 4 or 5 boxes of pheasant loads for next season. I did buy some 3" 20 gauge hulls to reload and see if I can get they to pattern decent....might take out a Beretta Silver Mallard 20 and see how that works, will be a touch lighter than the 11-87, not ready to switch-out full-time quite yet. No pics from today, but here are a few I haven't posted. Keep a tail feather from each of my birds to keep my season count....

 

[Shawk]

Nice Remy! Snuck out with my pooches Friday for our last hunt.... a lot of walking but we managed to find what we were looking for.

A few pics from the season... best wishes all!

 

[remy3424]

Great pics, the videos posted make you feel like you have been drinking, I don't think I had seen still pics pulled out and posted before. Maybe I just need to get out more. I was wondering how you got those until the last 2 pics! What was your opinion of the bird numbers this season? How crazy does it get with 2 GSPs when you are hunting alone!

 

[Shawk]

Haha... yeah, I picked up a GoPro several years ago for our hunts... maybe I should just tell people I'm that quick with my phone!!

In fairness, I wasn't able to hunt 2019/2020 so I can't really compare back to back seasons. But I typically get out a bunch most years. I would say numbers weren't much different from the prior 2 years I hunted.... maybe a little better?? I'm just thrilled numbers are better than 10-12 years ago!

Hunting with 2 pooches was completely new to me when we got our second and it's incredibly fun!! My older pooch is limited now. But in our best years, the best part is running them on rotation having a fresh partner for those long days. But I definitely ran them together as often as I could. So yeah, I suppose the only thing better than two would be three (so I've been told by another member or two here! lol). THAT is my dilemma right now. I'm actually in a battle with myself whether to add a 3rd since our breeder will likely stop having litters one of these days. I doubt I will... but boy it's tempting and I'm definitely thinking about it... TBD!

 

[Open Ranger]

Very nice pic's. I love the Shorthairs! I have raised them myself for years and will always have one with our brace of dogs. 2020/ 21 wasn't the best of hunting seasons for my group like past years. We pushed hard this past weekend and yes we put some roosters in the but having 4 hunters and five dogs we had to work extremely hard through the nastiest cover I have ever walked in on Saturday just to locate the birds. Sunday we pretty much marched cattails for the I/2 a day and the birds were holding very tight. You darn near had to step on them before they would break... Oh well that hunting in Iowa East Iowa in January!

 

[remy3424]

Seemed like Iowa hunter numbers were down this year as with Iowans posting on this board. Maybe next year we will have some birds here...wink-wink.

 

[Shawk]

Yeah... I haven't been around here much the last couple years but we used to have a pretty good group of Iowa posters. We need these guys/gals to come back! It was a fun group... Glad you had a good season! Catch ya a little later...

 

[Open Ranger]

My group has a blast hunting the northern half of Iowa. We always find birds and the adventure gets better each year. I should have taken the handle Tail Gate Reporter! Because I love to hear the stories from the other hunters we meet along the way. Some days better then others but always a good time! These pictures where not all from this year. Just showing some of the pictures from Northwest Iowa over the last three years.

 

[Herkster]

While I didn't get to hunt Saturday or Sunday of the final weekend, I did make it out of the office around 2p on Friday the 8th for a quick walk with a buddy and my new pup, Tess. Honestly, our strategy was poor, I picked a big piece that I knew had birds in it, but with the crunchy snow, they were next to impossible to get on. Tess did have a quick point on a hen, that ended up running and getting up right in front of us, but that was the only bird in range.

Tess, my GWP, was born on July 2nd of 2020, we picked her up and brought her home on August 28th. With harvest fast approaching, it was all fun and games, figured I'd sit this season out with her and start fresh in the spring of 2021. A few fun walks on the dredge ditch south of my acreage after pheasant opener and I could tell she was interested. She'd get birdy, she found birds, she busted birds, but nevertheless, it was harvest time, not hunting time for us.

We got her first bird on November 20th and it came out of a dredge ditch less than half a mile south of our acreage, this was also the first shot I took over her during the act of actual hunting. One bird, one shot, one kill. I was pumped!

Most of December was quiet for us, kept her in during deer seasons, and took a few walks over my lunch hour, but never really hunted her hard. I ended up meeting up with a buddy and his dog, Megs, on January 2nd and hunted a piece of private ground, and man, was there birds in it! The cattails erupted 150 yards in front of us, pushing out 25-30 birds and I thought we were done for, but we found a few stragglers!

3 roosters that day, 1 gimmie that I missed on, and an excited chance at a double that I knocked down rooster 1 and whiffed on rooster 2. Oh well, great hunt with a friend who's dog is a machine.

Overall, a great season for us, my first time owning a bird dog, and honestly, with her as young as she was, I wasn't really expecting to hunt her anyways. Now, maybe a trip to South Dakota in a week or two? Or a game farm in Minnesota? I'm not sure, but I'm not ready to hang it up yet.

 

[remy3424]

Hope that good lookin pup is a bird finding machine next season for you! It really changes things when you have your own dog. I filled my deer tag on the first day of late muzzy season, so I lost no pheasant hunting days chasing deer this year.

 

[Open Ranger]

Herkster,

Have you had GWP's before. I have had two of them and several GSP's over the years. By next season this pup will be ready to Rock -N- Roll out there. Things you could start working on is making sure Tess comes back to a whistle command, stops on a Whoa! command and keep her steady to wing and shot. I have trained many pointing dogs in my life so if you need any help just reach out I am sure not only myself but others on this site would offer tips also. Just remember pups make mistakes so you don't want to be to hard on them when they do, corrections should be calm and consistent. The goal is to have a hunting partner for life.

 

[Herkster]

Herkster,

Have you had GWP's before. I have had two of them and several GSP's over the years. By next season this pup will be ready to Rock -N- Roll out there. Things you could start working on is making sure Tess comes back to a whistle command, stops on a Whoa! command and keep her steady to wing and shot. I have trained many pointing dogs in my life so if you need any help just reach out I am sure not only myself but others on this site would offer tips also. Just remember pups make mistakes so you don't want to be to hard on them when they do, corrections should be calm and consistent. The goal is to have a hunting partner for life.

Hey Ranger

I've never owned a hunting dog before, let alone a GWP. My wife had them growing up, and I fell in love with their last GWP they had, and add in the hunting ability, and I was sold. So, that also means that I am 100% new to training a hunting dog and as of right now, I tried to put as little pressure on her as I could while out in the field. Our last day of hunting she was just a day or two over 6 months old.

She points, held a few points, and when she didn't hold the point, it appeared the pheasant broke and ran a bit, but I can't keep up with her sometimes. She certainly isn't steady to wing and shot, she does know Whoa, and I'm working on reinforcement of that, and she comes on command to "come", but I will need a whistle as I've heard that is the recommended way.

I'll take any hints, tips, tricks, knowledge, anything, really, that'll help us along the way. I'm in a pretty flexible job that allows me to take plenty of partial days off during the hunting seas, so she'll get (and she GOT) plenty of exposure each year. The only hard part is that I also farm, but that might only take me out of a weekend or two after opener.

She's now collar trained as well, working on fetch which she does really, really well. She hasn't been good at finding down birds yet, but that's because she doesn't look up to the sky when they're getting shot to watch them fall. If I get her in the area, she'll find them right away.

I don't know much else, kind of rambling now, but I'm excited to see how this all works. I'm in a sales position, have a lot of customers and prospects that hunt, and want the dog to excel so I can take customers on hunts and have a dang good dog with us. Thought about sending her to a trainer, but that'd be down the road anyways. Who knows...

 

[Open Ranger]

Herkster,

It sounds like you are well on your way to having a great hunter. If your dog locked on on point and then after a second or two moves forward that may be ok depending on the situation. What she may be doing is following the heaviest of scent trail. The bird may have been bedded down in a spot she hit the scent and locked up like her instinct told her to. All of a sudden she then gets a stronger scent is coming from down wind so she starts to move carefully towards it. If she then again locks up and points that is fine with me. Once she locates enough birds you will see that the good ones will be able to tell if the bird is close. You need to pay very close attention to her body language. when her tail is waging back and forth like crazy she has picked up scent but when she stops wagging the tail and it comes up high she is on it and it is close. What you don't want her to do or start doing is to pounce in on them after she has held a spot towering over them on point. Some pups get so eager to please they just can't hold back and jump in to start the action.

I will keep watching for your post and again will offer any advise or help if needed. I love to watch good bird dogs work the field, especially the pointers! My opinion they have a style that none can match. Good luck and we look forward to seeing more great pictures of your future hunts.

 

[Herkster]

Herkster,

It sounds like you are well on your way to having a great hunter. If your dog locked on on point and then after a second or two moves forward that may be ok depending on the situation. What she may be doing is following the heaviest of scent trail. The bird may have been bedded down in a spot she hit the scent and locked up like her instinct told her to. All of a sudden she then gets a stronger scent is coming from down wind so she starts to move carefully towards it. If she then again locks up and points that is fine with me. Once she locates enough birds you will see that the good ones will be able to tell if the bird is close. You need to pay very close attention to her body language. when her tail is waging back and forth like crazy she has picked up scent but when she stops wagging the tail and it comes up high she is on it and it is close. What you don't want her to do or start doing is to pounce in on them after she has held a spot towering over them on point. Some pups get so eager to please they just can't hold back and jump in to start the action.

I will keep watching for your post and again will offer any advise or help if needed. I love to watch good bird dogs work the field, especially the pointers! My opinion they have a style that none can match. Good luck and we look forward to seeing more great pictures of your future hunts.

The amount of learning I've had in one gun season, with a puppy, is astounding. From watching her try to find scent, getting on old scent, finding fresh scent, and all the different signs she makes on each while searching is crazy. She has had a few "false" points, locked on tight, but no bird to be kicked up, which i'm sure will come with time? I'd guess that meant a bird was there recently, and has ran, but I'm not positive.

I'll keep everyone updated as it goes. I was hoping to make a trip to South Dakota for a few days to end the year, but I'm not sure that'll happen. The kennel where I got her from is up by Mankato, MN, and just north of there is a game farm. I'm pondering doing that a time or two yet this winter as well. Who knows, but man, I've had fun already!

 

[Open Ranger]

Having fun is what it is all about! Best of luck if you go to South Dakota, I was actually thinking about one more hunt there myself because the weather has been so decent recently.