October

It’s been a busy fall and shaping up to be just as busy this winter.  I did get out bird hunting just every weekend in October, which meant a lot of late night drives to Rangeley, Maine Friday after work, but it was worth it.

I ended up doing a lot of solo hunting with myself and the dog, which was a good thing.  This season, her third in the woods, she really was able lock on to the scent of the birds.  The amount of birds we came across was much less than I was accustomed to, but we still had enough flushes where I could spend some time watching the dog work.  Watching a hunting dog work is really an amazing thing to watch.  I have done limited training focusing on the basics and really just trying to get the dog on birds and into the woods.  Most of her ability is from natural instinct that has been bread into the dog, but it seems that this year something scent related clicked.  I spent a lot of time watching her learn this season and how she works so I can recognize when she is “birdy”, and help command her to “whoa” something which has been taught but forgotten in the thrill of the chase this year.

She is starting to get more confidence and is no longer underfoot as much.  She has realized to find birds she needs to go where I tell her to go and circle back.  This ranging and circling back was especially cool when she was on the scent of a bird.  Her demeanor changed and she was excited as a cat enticed with some cat nip.

I did quite a bit of learning as well this year.  First and foremost being to trust your dog!  We were on our way back to the truck, and as we were walking a gravel tote road, I had the dog working the edge we did not hunt as we walked.  At one point the dog broke off the side I wanted her to hunt and circled over to the side we had hunted.  She kept working this edge a foot from the road and focused in on this loan clump of grass a couple feet tall.  After what felt like a couple minutes of waiting I said, “come on dog, there is no bird in there!”  Well she did not listen to me and sure enough as she pushed her nose into the center of this tiny lump of grass a woodcock took off.  That bird had held so long, and so tight, in the most unexpected location, I couldn’t believe it.  I had to hold my head in shame the rest of the weekend.

The weather was too good, but we did have some neat things to see and experience.  This wall also the first time I had taken the family with me up North to enjoy the country.

Lucky for me the boys got to see some birds in the wild, and being prepped for the dinner table.  I have never come across a grouse like this in the wild, where I had time to take a photo, but we did and the boys got to see it before it scurried off into the woods.

The boys also got to help clean and eat some woodcock the dog and came across that weekend.  I am hopeful that I will have two young hunter’s to accompany me into the woods once they are ready.

We made a pit stop at Coos Canyon and where constantly on the lookout for wildlife.

With October now almost two weeks in the past we have spent a lot of time resting and getting ready for winter to arrive.