how long to look for a downed lost bird?

S

small munsterlander owner

Banned
hey guys just wanted to know what everybodys thoughts were on how long do we spend looking for a lost bird we shot & knocked down but did not find??? i will spend as much as 30-40 min looking for a bird if i know i hit him hard & hunt in the direction of wear the bird ran off to if hes a runner with legs under him but i just want to know what the minimum time is & whats the most you will spend looking for that bird i will even keep hunting then go back to the scene of the shooting & re look for the bird later thought id ask because im like many of you i hate hate hate loosing a bird i know i shot id rather have him in my bag dead then in the field die n slowly i think that we are all like that i hope...
 
i feel you last yr my dog & my brothers llewellin setter tracked a wounded prairie chicken over 150+ yards to a thick mess i would think any prairie chicken would avoid & any pheasant would love it took like 20-30 min of looking & let n the dogs do there thing...

last wk-end i tracked a nicked bird a good 100+ yards my dog kept get n birdy in some cattails & tall shatter caine i ended up moving her along on the way back through the area to the van i walked through a spot near wear the dog was birdy she locked up again & i just kept walking through the grass only to jump the rooster he fly ok not great & went down near my van after i missed a EZ shot he flushed behind me thats my excuse lol any way i walked write to wear i seen him go down & the dog ran into the corn 40 yards away i thought the bird would do that so i stayed with the dog only to have the rooster flush again behind me i missed a long shot & he went into the corn any way he could fly enough to avoid my dumb A** lol still sucks!!! me & birdybritt lost 1 nice rooster in some thick trees in a slough surrounded by ankle deep water that sucked we were write by the vehicles!!!

birdybritts dog sinner saved me 2 times on that trip 1 runner in cattails his dog got after my dog got kicked in the nose & just stood there i herd the bird kinda cackle & flap n must of been fight n with my girl then his dog rushed by us & came back with a rooster in her mouth with no tail who cares that was a great retrieve in my book!!! she also maid a hard retrieve in cattails for me the last day im not 100% sure my dog would of found that bird either she was dug in the cattails 3-4 feet over her head so??? thanks sinner & rob ur the best man got me my limit 2 days in a row that dog did!!!

i feel the same way driggs it all depends i also have for sure 100% killed birds & looked in that area only to have a dog or hunter in my party find a very much alive bird near by but not wear i thought it was so if i know i will not get the bird i spend like u say 15-25 min in the area doing circles get n bigger & bigger then hunt the thick cover close by & then i have to call it it me & my dog have no luck... sometimes i even come back a day later or hours later & look again just wish n & hope n i guess a???

hope we all dont loose any more birds this season good luck to all out there...
 
I will generally look about 15 minutes, but if the dogs have not found the bird looking in the area a bird has been knocked downing in, my bet is that its run out of the area. Start to move on and hope one of the dogs picks up scent.

Basically, give it a good solid effort, and I like to swing back through the area later if possible.
 
Until you find it, or you have covered the ground thoroughly and have no trace to go by. Then feel sick about for a day or two! I remember having green pups, and two young girls, for some reason we crippled 3 birds in a row. The first and third we basically disked up the field, no sign. The second was completely the other direction having run across an 80@ wheat stubble field, into a CRP ditch, we got him after moving the dogs a different direction and recast through the downed area, I thought the dogs were dafted. Next day, I used the old trick of the bird hunter, went back through, dogs for both the other two birds in an area where we shot them. One dead, one wounded. Both having given of scent overnight. I have made that effort again in repeated days to find other birds. Once I had an english setter who retreived my limit, the second day of the season, on a public area, before I assembled my gun! She had the luxury of combing a ditch across the road from a refuge, which crippled birds gravitated too, trying to get to the refuge area across the road. I count the wounded and not recovered birds in my daily limit, by the way, hopefully, recovered later.
 
What old & new said. I hate to lose a bird & will look until the dog & I are out of options. I have often returned to the spot later & pup has found the bird. Lost 1 last year; after an hour or so, Hank locked-up on a badger hole. Sure enough, there were rooster tracks just inside. Not much we could do after that.
 
oh im am sick over the 1-2 birds i crippled this yr thats why i had to start the thread i hate to lose birds id rather not shoot or miss clean the wing or cripple 1 & not recover it...

in europe they call wounded pheasants runners or escapes not cripples like here in the u.s. that pretty much sums up every wounded or crippled pheasant ive ever seen or dealt with run run run hide hide hide i have to say a pheasant has the strongest will to survive or stay alive then any other wild game i have hunted the word "give up" is not in a pheasants vocab... they don't even think it!!!

my dad had a german shepherd of all dogs that would & did recover wounded pheasants from other hunters often she did not catch them they were or had been shot winged or leg shot ETC. she would recover his winged pheasants also... he had that dog when there was pheasants all over our area & she learned to hunt like the labs his buddys had at the time wish i met that dog!!!

i hunt & fall into alot of badger holes wear i hunt pheasants i will be sure to check them out next time i come across 1 when i down a pheasant & i cant find him man they are smart!!! & tough!!!
 
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My dogs are very good at hunting dead and I trust their noses. I get them in the area, let them do their thing and stay out of the way. Hunters trampling the area doesn't help. If they don't find the bird or cut a track within 15mins I will move on and revisit the area an hour or two later and give it another go. Losing birds is tough, thankfully it doesn't happen often.
 
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Somewhere I have a picture of us literally tearing apart a huge packrat den that a quail ran into. We don't F around when it comes to recovering game!:thumbsup:

I imagine everybody on here will do a thorough search until all hope is lost.:thumbsup: As much as I hate the anxiety of a long search, it sure does puff up your chest with pride when your dog finally comes up with the bird.

I agree with Quailhound. I stand still after I shoot a bird and wait for the dog to do her thing. If the retrieve is not immediate, I will move to the area where I marked the bird down and stand still there. Then, if the dogs lose interest in searching, I call them back to that spot and make them start again.

When hunting with others, I will always insist that all dogs are brought in to look for the bird. And I let the shooter decide when the search is over. Unless they are too impatient, and then I just keep searching with my dog until I am satisfied. :laugh::cheers:
 
Standing, watching, & letting the dog work is key. Thanks to those of you who added that.
 
lost birds

it happens, get over it. the more you shoot, the more you will lose, fact. my dogs have been trained to hunt dead, one is pretty good at it the other, fantastic. i'll stay in the area till the dogs leave following the bird or they lose interest, don't walk all over the area, more often than not i will return to the area a short while later and that often helps the dog sort out the scent. as far as telling if the bird was hit really hard, well that is bullshit, ya can't tell, watching a duck fall out of the air, it is possible but due to the angle that pheasants usually fall, ya can't see the head of the bird so ya can't tell. the only thing you know is if the bird fell straight down or glided down. studies have shown that about 35% of the birds hit the ground not dead and over 1/3 of those hit the ground running. i would suspect that a very high percentage of those are never recovered. guys that hunt without a dog approach a loss factor on pheasants in the 35% range some of which have run off but many are just tough to see in the cover. i have a ten year average of well over a 1000 birds killed of about 6%. don't know how this stacks up but suspect that it is pretty good. to me a lost bird is counted when if fell within possible sight of the dog or at least the dog should have seen it, likely 100 yds. or less. a few days ago i recovered a rooster on a hunt in wyo. that bird was finally found on the third try over a period of a couple of hours but find it we did. funny thing about pointing dogs, they can hunt for hours just to find a bird and that is fun, but for them to look for a wounded bird for 10 min. well, that's work, you can get them over it though

cheers
 
I hate losing birds. I let the dog pretty much tell me when to stop looking, unless the bird was obviously dead when it hit the ground. If I think it was dead when it hit the ground I will get on my hands and knees and crawl around the area that he fell in if I have to.
 
I don't know if you can really put a clock to it. I agree that walking all over an area seems to make it harder for the dog to pick up the scent of the bird and I have had some success with letting the dogs hunt dead until they lose interest then coming back to the area later maybe a couple of times.
 
i agree with everything you said mustistuff except the IT HAPPENS GET OVER IT part if people dont respect the game they are hunting enough to be sick over a wounded & die n bird they shot to start with then they really have there issues mixed up??? them guys are what i call bird shooters... not bird hunters...

them same guys dont care to learn a little about the game they are hunting like wear it spends its day ETC. if they go out & dont see birds in the grass there are not birds ETC. we all must do our best to recover wounded game & respect the game we are hunting... i mean the guys with the dead birds just piled up & look messy just erks me line the birds up in a row make em look nice for the pic just dont pose for the hero pic ETC. there is more to hunting then just shooting birds dead...

i have not shot 1000 birds yet so i can remember every lost bird i downed & they all bug me till this day!!! especially with low pheasant #s across the country or declining bird #s any way...

thanks for the comments guys
 
I will go to where I think the bird went down and let my dog circle me, he always picks up the trail that way. If its on the ground it should leave scent. I haven't lost a bird in 3 years this way, but it does create some long trails till the bird tires or try's to hide. I also hunt with a lab and I'm not sure if its different with pointers. My brother in law hunts a GSP and will be so far behind because his dog keeps scent locking but that's my only pointer experience. Give that a try we always pick up the scent with in a few minutes and the chase is on!
 
oldandnew said:
Until you find it, or you have covered the ground thoroughly and have no trace to go by. Then feel sick about for a day or two! I remember having green pups, and two young girls, for some reason we crippled 3 birds in a row. The first and third we basically disked up the field, no sign. The second was completely the other direction having run across an 80@ wheat stubble field, into a CRP ditch, we got him after moving the dogs a different direction and recast through the downed area, I thought the dogs were dafted. Next day, I used the old trick of the bird hunter, went back through, dogs for both the other two birds in an area where we shot them. One dead, one wounded. Both having given of scent overnight. I have made that effort again in repeated days to find other birds. Once I had an english setter who retreived my limit, the second day of the season, on a public area, before I assembled my gun! She had the luxury of combing a ditch across the road from a refuge, which crippled birds gravitated too, trying to get to the refuge area across the road. I count the wounded and not recovered birds in my daily limit, by the way, hopefully, recovered later.
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What he said!
 
For me there is much that goes into my decision of " how long". If the cover is short sometimes a few minutes is long enough, other times in heavy cover a half hour or more is sufficient. Like others have said, I usually let the dog tell me when to quit. After I have called him to the spot several times, the bird is more than likely gone no matter how much I wish it wasn't. It makes me sick to lose birds I have far to much respect for how much they go through to allow me to hunt them. Guy's that have retrieving dogs will appreciate this. But sometimes a couple times a trip, my dog will just run up with a cripple in his mouth that he has found. I put it in the bag and feel a little better about the one's i've lost.
 
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carptom1 said:
Guy's that have dogs will appreciate this. But at sometimes a couple times a trip, my dog will just run up with a cripple in his mouth that he has found. I put it in the bag and feel a little better about the one's i've lost.
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I have the exact same feeling when my dog brings me a cripple, its almost a feeling of relief that I can now take rooster I lost previously off the list.:10sign:
 
i agree i have to much respect for the game im hunting to not do my best to look for wounded game... that was one of my main reason for get n a hunting dog it was not to use it to kill more birds it was to help me find game i hit but can not find on my own or with the big bulldogge help... i was sick of losing or palying dog after the shot so it was either shoot better witch im trying & or get a dog to help recover my F ups...

also my father can not chase a flusher through the fields or walk endlessmiles for birds like he once could so i got a god i thought would point for him work close & recover birds she is all i could ask for for 16-17 months old cant wait till shes 3-4!!!

im not at the stage wear i count nicked or wounded birds to my limit but i would happily add anothers wounded bird to my limit if my dog found it after they crippled it... that would make me feel a little better about the 1s ive lost over the years...
 
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