Opening weekend reports?

Waterdog....Crazy might be an understatement. I've never experienced anything remotely like that. I'm entering my 15th season owning a dog. I usually hunt 20+ times a year & shoot 40+ roosters a year, all on public ground. Since getting my first dog in 2002, I'll bet I haven't lost more than 15 birds EVER! That said, maybe I've just lucked into a couple good ones, or my hunting so much makes a difference. Don't know. Also, I have VERY little experience hunting with more than 2 dogs. It seems counterintuitive, but could having so many dogs around confuse them?
 
Our group hunts a variety of dogs and we lost probably 5 birds and picked up 105. As for the question about dogs confusing the situation I am not sure but we have noticed that some of the pointers don't do well on downed birds. Some of this is related to hunting them with labs that retrieve well so the pointers have lost interest in finding the dead birds. The pointers are setters, GSP, and a Britt.

We have the most trouble when we have over hunted our dogs and they are beat from 3 plus days of hunting and in areas where a bird ran and we flushed many birds from that area.

We also preach to our group mark well where the bird went down. It is tough to go back after the fact if it is not marled well when there is a lot of scent in area and find a wounded or buried bird. Some in our group are much better than others at this.
 
Two words will fix lost birds: springer & spaniel. :D Back to the topic, after 1 more weekend, I'm still of the opinion that bird numbers may be up a bit in the Salem/Bridgewater/Spencer area. Haven't been up in the Howard/Romona/Rutland/Colman areas yet. Will let others educate them & let some of the corn start to come out, then head up & see what they're like.
 
Just returned home. 4 days hunting. Limits every day. Day 1 11 guys, many dogs 33 roosters, in 4 hours. Days 2,3 and 4 we had 6 guys, 4 dogs and 18 roosters each day.
Birds were in standing corn most of the day. push and block strategy. Hunted small slews and grass fields last hour of the day. Bird numbers were about the same as last year. Many 2 year old birds with long spurs. A great trip as usual.
On a side note, public land ditch hunters who were cleaning birds with us did not do too well. I would say 1- 1.5 birds per guy was the average.
 
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