TwistedSage
Well-known member
Ella is my 4.5 month old Drahthaar, my first pointing let alone versatile dog and really the first dog that I have truly dedicated myself to training. I'm sure I'll continue to make mistakes but we'll figure it out together.
Before we started training together I had hopes that we would be able to hunt together towards the end of the season maybe in February where shed be around 7 months. This pup has been bold to say the least and with no sensitivity to gunfire and being on a few rabbit hunts already I figured we might as well start our bird training as soon as we can.
Got Ella out for her first Quail hunt this past opening weekend and first time hunting birds. We ended up with one bird and both of us learned a whole lot. I recognize some mistakes I made that I made thatll give me more to work on for next time and Ella now knows that hunting birds is the bees knees, even better than her old favorite hunting rabbits.
Because our previous outings have been about tracking and hunting rabbits I really wanted to make sure I had as much control as possible and really wanted to work on the point more than anything so Ella was on a lead the whole time with the exception of once which I'll get to later.
I had her on my over the shoulder Jaeger lead plus I tied about a 10ft peice of 550 chords to the end of that to give her a small bit more range. I'd liked to have given her longer but the yuccas and mesquite would end in more tangles than anything.
I use a peice of 550 chord for a slip tracking lead for her too so as soon as the 550 was hooked to her collar she knew it was time to start looking for something. I took her to a couple of spots that I knew quail frequented, unfortunately rabbit are there as well and use all the same trails. So while I was trying to put her on quail she was trying to put me on rabbits. I kept on following her for about an hour and a half and she put us right up to 3 different Jack's, luckily she was on lead as she wanted to trail badly. We got back in the truck and went to a different area, about 200 yards in and sleeking up a scrub oak sandhills she throws a solid point as if theres something in the grass right ahead. I get ready as we inch forward then I see it, a damn rattle snake! I about chit myself and yanked her away. Thank goodness it was already dead and no head to be found whew. The next hour or so every time her lead slipped through the scrub and rattles the dead leaves I about jumped out of my boots.
About halfway through the day I took control of the hunt and started checking out all of the old gnarled mesquites I knew the conveys like to gather. Wasn't long after we got into an area that had these old gnarled groves that I saw a cover running from tree to tree. Ella was unaware of the birds as she was still in rabbit mode but I kept us creeping in. I saw the covey flush and knocked one down right as they flushed. This is where I made my big mistake in hindsight... in wanting ella to put it together after I saw the bird down I let her off the lead and said go get it. Ella didnt see the Quail at first let alone mark the bird I hit, she did however see the covey flush and got super excited. When I let her off lead she didnt know I needed my down bird she just went to go find the rest and promptly did so bust a couple landed singles and trying to relocate again. Damnit. After I gathered her up and put her back on lead we walked back to the tree the covey flushed from and where the downed bird was at, she found the bird and i let her have her moment with it. We then played fetch a couple of times and i held it close to me petted her let her get another whiff and put it away. From then on she was on the birds, cutting all kinds of tracks and throwing points into trees the birds likely scurried from. We hunted the mile back to the truck and she bumped 2 more singles. She had tracked them and just got too close she didnt intentionally flush but the birds weren't hanging around. While cut for sure this time we bumped another rabbit but this time she just looked back at me, I said no, and she got back to looking for birds.
I am super excited to have quail wings now to put on her bumper and do some more retrieve training and also to correct my mistake next time and make sure shes on lead for the complete process of find, shoot, and retrieve the downed bird before moving on to the next birds. I probably set her back a bit on that one.
I shared my beef jerkey with her on the way home and gave her some extra attention. Looking forward to many hunts with my new partner.
Before we started training together I had hopes that we would be able to hunt together towards the end of the season maybe in February where shed be around 7 months. This pup has been bold to say the least and with no sensitivity to gunfire and being on a few rabbit hunts already I figured we might as well start our bird training as soon as we can.
Got Ella out for her first Quail hunt this past opening weekend and first time hunting birds. We ended up with one bird and both of us learned a whole lot. I recognize some mistakes I made that I made thatll give me more to work on for next time and Ella now knows that hunting birds is the bees knees, even better than her old favorite hunting rabbits.
Because our previous outings have been about tracking and hunting rabbits I really wanted to make sure I had as much control as possible and really wanted to work on the point more than anything so Ella was on a lead the whole time with the exception of once which I'll get to later.
I had her on my over the shoulder Jaeger lead plus I tied about a 10ft peice of 550 chords to the end of that to give her a small bit more range. I'd liked to have given her longer but the yuccas and mesquite would end in more tangles than anything.
I use a peice of 550 chord for a slip tracking lead for her too so as soon as the 550 was hooked to her collar she knew it was time to start looking for something. I took her to a couple of spots that I knew quail frequented, unfortunately rabbit are there as well and use all the same trails. So while I was trying to put her on quail she was trying to put me on rabbits. I kept on following her for about an hour and a half and she put us right up to 3 different Jack's, luckily she was on lead as she wanted to trail badly. We got back in the truck and went to a different area, about 200 yards in and sleeking up a scrub oak sandhills she throws a solid point as if theres something in the grass right ahead. I get ready as we inch forward then I see it, a damn rattle snake! I about chit myself and yanked her away. Thank goodness it was already dead and no head to be found whew. The next hour or so every time her lead slipped through the scrub and rattles the dead leaves I about jumped out of my boots.
About halfway through the day I took control of the hunt and started checking out all of the old gnarled mesquites I knew the conveys like to gather. Wasn't long after we got into an area that had these old gnarled groves that I saw a cover running from tree to tree. Ella was unaware of the birds as she was still in rabbit mode but I kept us creeping in. I saw the covey flush and knocked one down right as they flushed. This is where I made my big mistake in hindsight... in wanting ella to put it together after I saw the bird down I let her off the lead and said go get it. Ella didnt see the Quail at first let alone mark the bird I hit, she did however see the covey flush and got super excited. When I let her off lead she didnt know I needed my down bird she just went to go find the rest and promptly did so bust a couple landed singles and trying to relocate again. Damnit. After I gathered her up and put her back on lead we walked back to the tree the covey flushed from and where the downed bird was at, she found the bird and i let her have her moment with it. We then played fetch a couple of times and i held it close to me petted her let her get another whiff and put it away. From then on she was on the birds, cutting all kinds of tracks and throwing points into trees the birds likely scurried from. We hunted the mile back to the truck and she bumped 2 more singles. She had tracked them and just got too close she didnt intentionally flush but the birds weren't hanging around. While cut for sure this time we bumped another rabbit but this time she just looked back at me, I said no, and she got back to looking for birds.
I am super excited to have quail wings now to put on her bumper and do some more retrieve training and also to correct my mistake next time and make sure shes on lead for the complete process of find, shoot, and retrieve the downed bird before moving on to the next birds. I probably set her back a bit on that one.
I shared my beef jerkey with her on the way home and gave her some extra attention. Looking forward to many hunts with my new partner.
