Jake was my first really good pheasant dog, and when he died, I thought I'd never own a better one.
A raw-boned, white-and-liver English pointer, Jake lived to hunt--not very surprising for a dog with illustrious ancestors like Red Water Rex, Paladin's Royal Flush, and Elhew Saddle figuring prominently in his pedigree. He covered his ground like the thoroughbreds from whom he was descended.
His nose seldom betrayed him, and his points were all style. Before I got Jake, I'd hunted behind dogs that were mediocre at best, and a few that were complete disasters. He opened my eyes to what a real bird dog could do.
His daughter, Rebel, spent her puppy apprenticeship in his shadow. Although she was daintier and easier to handle than her sire, Reb had a lot of the Old Man in her. I looked forward to many pheasant seasons afield with her.
But I knew that I'd also need a second dog. Reb had been very much Jake's understudy, and I hadn't worked her all that hard. I hunt at least 50 days a season, and I didn't think the little pointer bitch could handle it all by herself.
A nearby preserve owner told me about a started English setter he had. As it turned out, the setter did not impress me much. The only other started dog he had was a 15-month-old German shorthair bitch. Heidi did a nice job on some planted quail, and she went home to become Reb's kennel mate.
I nearly lost Reb to kidney failure at the start of the next season. Slated to play backup behind Rebel, Heidi suddenly was thrust center stage. That was to be her role for the next several years. Although Reb was able to hunt four more seasons, her health was never the best, and I had to limit her to a few hours at the longest, followed by a couple of days' rest.
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) was just beginning to take hold at the start of Heidi's career, turning millions of acres of marginal crop ground into near perfect pheasant habitat. Because she was slower and closer-working than my pointers, I wondered about her effectiveness in cover that looked as if it had been designed with big-going dogs in mind.
Slower Going
On my first few hunts in CRP fields, I regretted that Reb was incapacitated. I felt even worse that Jake had died before CRP took hold. It wasn't so much that Heidi was a disappointment, I was just having a hard time adjusting to her slower, rolling gait after the speed and grace of my pointers.
But I gradually grew accustomed to the big, liver bitch. She might not have had the full-out speed of Jake or Reb, but she could keep it up all day--in fact, for several days in a row if need be. She also had a good nose, and for a dog with part of her tail lopped off, looked pretty darned good on point.
I really came to appreciate her when I hunted the smaller pieces of cover. Keeping Jake or Reb in sight while trying to work a narrow fence row, a ditch, or an abandoned railroad was almost a full-time job, requiring liberal use of whistle and electronic collar. Sure, they'd point birds when they found them. The trouble was, if the point came a couple of hundred yards away in cover where birds tend to be somewhat nervous, chances were better than even that I wouldn't be in range for the flush.
Heidi, on the other hand, would work such spots almost in gun range without much hacking. While there are those who will say that these chores should be left to the flushing breeds, there's something to be said for a pointing dog that can work close when necessary.
Of course, if you have one that works close all the time, even in those hundred-acre fields where birds are scattered far and wide, you would be just as well off with a springer spaniel. But it seems to me that if you have a dog that will stretch out in the wide-open spaces but work close in tight cover--a dog that can shift gears--then you have the best of both worlds.
Heidi has proved this point to my satisfaction. Comparing the careful notes I've kept of all my hunts with Jake, Rebel, and Heidi, I find that my shorthair has made more productive points and delivered more birds in the bag per hour afield--by a fairly significant margin.
Would that have been true had I been running one of my pointers, in its prime, with all the CRP we have today? After all, in Iowa alone, that amounts to some two million acres of extremely productive, grassy cover, mostly in blocks of 40 acres or more, where a big runner can really show its stuff.
In fact, I now do nearly all my hunting in such cover, and Heidi continues to demonstrate just how well she can work it. She'll open up and get out there if she's not finding birds. But when she hits scent, she'll slow down and trail if that's what is required. And I'm convinced that pheasant dogs need to make that adjustment, even in big fields.
Joe Furrow and I were working one of his young shorthairs along with Heidi on a farm with perhaps 300 acres of CRP. They were casting back and forth, maybe 150 yards out, when Heidi struck scent. She dropped her head and began following the trail.
A few minutes and a quarter of a mile later, she eased into a point. I booted the rooster out of the grass and dropped him.
"And they say pheasants don't run in this stuff," said Joe.
Following the Trail
The fact is that pheasants do run in almost any kind of cover, especially after they've been pressured a bit. The difference in good, grassy cover, like most of our midwestern CRP fields, is that they are much more reluctant to fly than in thinner cover, or than in smaller chunks of cover. Follow them long enough, and you'll end up with some solid points and close shots. The problem is getting your dog to work out the trail.
A lot of hunters, especially those used to field trials or bobwhite quail hunting, like to see their dogs hit a point slam-bang fashion--no fooling around, no "pottering" after foot scent. That may be fine with released birds or with quail, neither of which walk around a whole lot. Pheasants, on the other hand, are the undisputed running and dodging champions of the upland bird world. If Nike made three-toed shoes, a wary rooster would probably wear them out faster than Michael Jordan.
A pheasant's tendency to run is the source of the old saying that ringnecks ruin pointing dogs. If you approach pheasant hunting from the perspective of field trial standards--dog remaining on point until released by handler; dog not putting his nose to the ground to work out a foot trail--then I agree that these long-tailed runners present some definite problems. Pheasants just don't play by the rules.
But from the perspective of the pheasant hunter, ringnecks don't ruin a pointing dog. However, they do provide a crash course that could be called Evasiveness 101. I don't know whether Charles Dickens ever hunted pheasants, but if he did, he was probably thinking of roosters he'd met when he called one of his characters The Artful Dodger.
If you force your dog off foot scent, you'll miss out on quite a few birds. Likewise, if you expect him to remain planted like a statue until you release him, no matter what the bird does, ringnecks will drive him--and you--crazy.
I like to watch a dog work out the twists and turns a pheasant takes as it snakes it way through the cover. And if the bird moves, I want my dogs to move with it. Of course, you need to be able to stop your dog from time to time so you don't need the conditioning of a marathon runner to keep pace.
But you're going to get awfully jumpy if your dog keeps pointing after the rooster has moved. Points will become meaningless because so many of them will be nonproductive. From my standpoint, it's far better to let the dog tell you when the bird really is hunkered down in front of his nose.
If you play by the pheasant's rules, you certainly should not expect to take all your birds over points. But that standard, in my opinion, should not be applied to pheasant hunting--nor to ruffed grouse, for that matter. You can restrict shots at woodcock or bobwhites to points without missing out on many chances. Pheasants are a bird of a different feather. But even playing by my rules, where I'll take any bird in range except those a dog intentionally busts, I still shoot about half my roosters over points.
I have never observed, with any of my dogs, that allowing them to work running ringnecks and letting them break point on their own when the bird moves has ruined their performance on other birds. I have seen days when normally tight-sitting woodcock engaged in some pretty fancy footwork in the aspens, and I'm perfectly happy to see my dogs relocate on them without being released. I don't think I get any fewer points, or any more bumped birds, by letting them work this way.
Finding Cripples
There is another very good reason to actually encourage your pheasant dog to work foot scent: cripples. Crippled birds are a fact of life to the pheasant hunter. Most pheasants you shoot won't come down stone dead. I've seen ringnecks with broken legs do a pretty good job of at least burying themselves in the grass, even if they don't run far. A wing-busted rooster with two good legs in heavy cover is as good as lost unless you have a dog that will run him down.
Here we must make a distinction between retrieving and running down cripples, because they are not necessarily the same skill. I have a young Gordon named Gwen who retrieves very well. She'll fetch me a dead bird almost before I have the time to reload my gun, and she'll go after a runner if she can see it. What she hasn't learned yet is how to track a cripple.
I lost two cripples with Gwen last season, the same as with Heidi. The difference is that I shot about five times as many birds over the shorthair as over the Gordon.
Losing crippled pheasants is a fact of life. I've read studies by various state game agencies that say you'll lose about one bird in 10 even with a dog. I've seen some dogs where that figure is far too optimistic. On the other hand, my losses with the two best cripple-finders I've owned, Heidi and Jake, amounted to more like one bird in 30.
Best Breeds
Now comes the really controversial part. Let's say you buy my theory about the best pointing dog for pheasants being one that can shift gears--a dog that can not only get out and cover ground when required to do so, but one that can work out the intricacies of the scent trail of a healthy or wounded bird. Does this tell us anything about which breed or breeds are most likely to do the best job for a pheasant hunter?
Well, yes and no. Starting with trailing ability first, we know that most of the so-called versatile or Continental breeds have been bred and trained to do this for generations. Chances are good that you are more likely to come up with a shorthair or wirehair that trails naturally as opposed to an English setter or pointer. That is not to say that you can't find one of the latter that will work foot scent--Jake did it quite well for me, especially on cripples. It's just that your odds are better with a versatile dog.
Taken as a group, versatile dogs tend to work closer than English setters and pointers. With some versatile breeds, a dog that makes a 75-yard cast would be classed as a big runner, with others, the shorthair being a good example, you can find plenty of dogs that will run considerably wider than that.
While it is true that a pheasant dog needs a low gear, either to work foot scent or to shut down somewhat in smaller pieces of cover, it also needs a high gear for the big fields. You'll find plenty of setters and pointers with only high in their transmissions. Although I'm sure there are more out there, I've only seen one--my own pointer, Jake--who could work a running cripple with the best of them.
Although many versatile dogs have first through third gears, there are far fewer that have fourth and overdrive. But there are certainly some, and it's been my privilege to hunt behind a few.
The versatile breeds far outnumber pointers and setters in my corner of pheasant country. This popularity seems at least partially in recognition of the fact that versatiles are more likely to succeed at shifting gears for ringnecks.
Dogs that do well in NAVHDA tests are likely to work running birds well. Snappy performers in local NSTRA trials almost certainly have the range necessary to work big cover. Some breeders participate in both. The dogs they produce would definitely be good candidates for pheasant dogs that can shift gears.
Southern quail hunters talk about "covey dogs" and "singles dogs." Today's pheasant hunter needs both in the same package. Regardless of the breed, if your dog combines these characteristics, he'll be a winner on ringnecks.
Copyright (c) 1996 Larry Brown. All rights reserved.
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