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Birdbrain88

New member
I just started hunting pheasant recently, I usually hunt with just one person without a dog (have a 6 y/o lab) and have little success flushing birds. I know other seasoned hunters in my area (MN/IA border) have been very successful this year, so I know the birds are plentiful. Are there any suggestions on how to train a older dog or be successful with just two hunters? TIA
 
Training an older dog is just like training a puppy. But consider this... A 6 year old dog has a limited number of seasons left, so focus on the important things if you're determined to hunt this dog: solid obedience for "here" and "sit," bird intro, gun intro, and an acceptable retrieve. Those things will make the dog useful. At that age I wouldn't worry about a perfect pattern as long as the dog's in range.

Hope that helps. And don't dismiss getting another dog :)
 
The dog is the key , watch it to see how it's rhythm or Tempo changes , he smelled something . Always work your dog into the wind when you can . I might try hunting smaller dense grass / cattail cover early in the morning or late in the day ( likely where birds are rooster )

I normally move / see / bag more birds in shotgun range when it is just me and my dogs .

Your approach is important to , I like parking where my vehicle is real obvious ( behind tall grass , plumb thicket low swale ) don't slam doors and alert birds .

Your dog will likely pick up on your body gestures / hand signals . I have encouraged my dogs to do this any time we are in the yard and generally can cast them the direction I am walking and or by giving direction with an extened arm .

I would encourage you to find a couple real good spots for pheasant and invite the ole pro you talked about . Seeing is believing !!!

Let us know how things are progressing / shoot a picture or two of your hunts we would love to see them .
 
Welcome!

I've posted this elsewhere, but can't find it now, but here's something very basic you might work on.
Work with your dog in the house, having him fetch pheasant wings. Make him sit in one room and hide the wing in another, then go back and bid him fetch.

Praise him as if he'd just discovered the formula for a water-fuel passenger car or non-fattening bacon, with a high pitched voice and lots of petting and praise. Make each discovery and retrieve the most wonderful thing a dog has ever done.

Then do it again, and again, and...a lot, stopping and giving a treat at the end.

Continue often and at an erratic schedule, making the pheasant wing/scent the most desireable search object of all his toys and activities. The activity itself will become a reward game for him.

The rest of the training can go on as suggested, but if you exalt the pheasant scent retrieval above all, you are going to have a dog that sees finding a pheasant scent as a reward in and of itself. It will translate itself to the hunting scenario.

It can do no harm, and has always worked for me.

Best wishes. :thumbsup:
 
Hunting without a dog is doable but you have to change your tactics. I prefer to stick to smaller areas along the edge of cover. I walk slowly and stop frequently to get birds to flush. Birds will get nervous and flush if you stop or change things up. Try and avoid large CRP fields and stick to draws and the edge of fields and such to make it more difficult for birds to simply side step you and never flush. Hunting in the snow can also help. I have shot a lot of birds without a dog, although I prefer using a dog, but I had to change my tactics.
 
The biggest issue hunting with out a dog it the birds that hunker down and will let you walk right past them. Later in the year once there is some pressure it becomes a little easier.

Have you had the dog in the field with you? If not you might be amazed at the dogs natural ability just watching for the dog getting birdie you might have greater success.

I agree with Pointing Lab stick to smaller properties, work heavy covered corners of open fields.

I have put my dogs in a field immediately after some of my family line hunted it. Pulled more birds out of the same field then they did line hunting. A dog can make a big difference, however still not a requirement. Remember a bad day hunting is better than a good day in the office. Get out there and over time you will kick up birds.

Best of luck.
 
Heck man, load up your lab and go out there. Work him into the wind and see what pops up. Shoot a rooster or two over him and he will figure it out. A lot of the things that gun dogs do is bred into them. One other thing, if you have never fired a shotgun around him, you need to take him out and just fire a 22 into the ground a few times. Then move up to a shotgun. The dog will look over in your direction and you need to assure him it's alright. After a few shoots, he won't even look at you because he knows it's the boss making all the noise. Good luck to you.
 
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Thanks for all the advice. I plan on bringing him out tomorrow with me and see how he acts. He listens well, but he tends run after squirrels and rabbits. So might have problems with him chasing birds out of range. Will let you all know how it goes tomorrow!
 
brittboy said:
Heck man, load up your lab and go out there. Work him into the wind and see what pops up. Shoot a rooster or two over him and he will figure it out. A lot of the things that gun dogs do is bred into them. One other thing, if you have never fired a shotgun around him, you need to take him out and just fire a 22 into the ground a few times. Then move up to a shotgun. The dog will look over in your direction and you need to assure him it's alright. After a few shoots, he won't even look at you because he knows it's the boss making all the noise. Good luck to you.
Click to expand...

I will respectfully disagree with brittboy on this method of gun intro. I want my dogs to associate gunfire with birds. First I introduce birds and make sure they LOVE them. Then, I introduce the gun starting with a 22 blank while in full chase of a bird, and in increments fire the gun closer to the dog. Then I follow the same process with a shotgun. When they associate gunfire with the greatest thing ever (birds), then gunfire is nearly the greatest thing ever.
 
Pigeons

The key to teaching a dog to hunt properly is pigeons. Nothing works as well. They have a lot of scent. Dogs can find them by scent easily. They are strong flyers...and YOU control the situation.

Go ahead and hunt this season. But, if you want to train a hunting dog to hunt with you and for you it is the work you do in the off season that will get you the results you want. Doesn't matter how old the dog is.

This book isn't in print any more. I talked to Jim about doing a re-print but he was too old and not interested. But you can see by the price for a used copy that it is highly prized.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Burnt-Creek-method-training/dp/B00071DEJQ

However, the Silent Command System is a close second.

http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Comman...=8-2&keywords=the+silent+command+dog+training

And Rick Smith will tell you that what you want is the "good enough" dog. Get the dog to the point that he will hunt with you, hunt for you, sit, stay, and come when told, and retrieve the birds. Hand signals, and all the rest are nice additions, but get the dog trained so you enjoy hunting with it.

I spent a good 30-40 days in the off season training my setter, and although the field trial guys would say I have dog with a lot of "potential"...I love hunting with my dog. It is pure joy. He makes mistakes, but not many.

My last outing he pointed 5 birds. I knocked down all 5 and we found 4. I hit the rooster we lost a long way out with 7 shot (we were in quail looking cover) and I saw it take off running. My fault for shooting so far with light shot at a rooster. But, Murphy pointed them all and retrieved 4 of 5....good enough.

Sorry for being so long winded. But, one last time....great bird dogs are trained in the off season.
 
No, I didn't miss that at all. There are a couple steps in training a pointing dog that you don't use with a flusher...but the basics...hunt with you, hunt for you, sit, stay, come and retrieve...apply to all dogs. Makes no difference. I have owned both. And trained both.

With a flushing dog (and I would say with all dogs) the key is control...you don't want that dog screaming down the field on the first whiff of scent chasing a running bird and then flushing a rooster 200 yards down the field.

And that kind of training...getting the dog to quarter in front of you, stay in front of you, hunt close, in control, stop to flush (which I HIGHLY recommend if you hunt with other people), all that is done in off season training. And the cheapest, best bird to use is the lowly, stinky old pigeon.
 
While I agree that most training principles are the same, to a new, inexperienced trainer it may be confusing to consult a pointing dog training book for a flushing dog. Also, the order and sequence of events for training a pointer vs. flusher is different.

But I agree that training sets the foundation and maintaining those standards while hunting is what makes a gundog. And pigeons are the best bang-for-your-buck training bird.
 
Kind of late, I went out Saturday and got a bird. I brought it home and let my lab smell it, he was pretty excited but not overly excited. I've tried using the wings for fetching purposes, he will go after the wing and will not put it in his mouth for some reason. I hide the wing and he finds it. How can I get him to retrieve it?
 
Birdbrain88 said:
Kind of late, I went out Saturday and got a bird. I brought it home and let my lab smell it, he was pretty excited but not overly excited. I've tried using the wings for fetching purposes, he will go after the wing and will not put it in his mouth for some reason. I hide the wing and he finds it. How can I get him to retrieve it?
Click to expand...

To bad your dog wasn't with you; he might have been a bit more excited :eek:
I had a female springer that I shot over as I described earlier to get her used to the noise. I took her out and just let her work into the wind. A roster jumped and I nailed him. She saw the bird go up and the bird fall after I shot. She ran straight to the bird, grabed it and looked back at me with these giant eyes. Then ran straight back to me and dropped the bird at my feet. There is a lot of stuff that just comes natural to bird dogs if you just take em hunting :thumbsup: Priss just got better and better as she gained experience "out hunting"
 
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