It's the Great Pumpkin!

It's not early autumn anymore.  Daylight savings time comes to an end this weekend, and the delightful blue domed weather we enjoyed in St. Louis is giving way to swirling pewter skies.  Put away the charcoal grill and find the crock pot.  No more fruited drinks, unless the fruit is a cherry at the bottom of an amber Manhattan.

 

Let's try it again

Well, ok, if you insist, but only if you are steady to the flush.

ESS Hunt Test

We'd hoped to steal a march and sneak out of St. Louis with a hunt test leg, but a broke dog is all we have to show for our dreams.  Larsen chased a running cock pheasant and didn't stop when he put the bird to flight, and our morning was over.

Larsen had been attentive to the whistle, which was pretty heavy in order to keep Larsen close at hand.  But when he caught scent of the running bird, and turned away from me to track it down, I knew that a sit whistle was chancy at best, and unhappily I was right.

We saw Debi, Kathy P., Deb B. and Jim as well as Tim and Cathy at the event.  A beautiful fall weekend in southern Missouri near St. Louis.

Larsen seems so very close to being steady.  I know that his breaking, and retrieving a shot pheasant is a set-back, but it still seems he is close.  Am I fooling myself?

The road to St. Louis

It seems a long time ago that we picked up Aki at the Atlanta airport and drove to St. Louis.

The drive took about 9 hours and we sent somewhere south of the city, to Fletcher, for a hunt test on Monday.  We stopped along the way and watched rice being loaded into storage bins along the Mississippi river.  We went hiking and found a box turtle.  We stopped by Grant's Farm and watched the Budweiser clydesdales stretch and plod about on the frosty morning.  We hiked the Route 66 trail.

Loading rice in Illinois along the Mississippi river.

At Grant's Farm

Budweiser Clydesdale carrier

Clydesdale




Along the Route 66 trail.

Upland hunting in NY

One of my correspondents opined on grouse hunting on public lands in NY.  The recommendations are valid in other areas as well.

If you're hunting public land in NY, you'll find that much of it is fairly mature.  The trick is to find the covers within the cover.
 Look for apple trees back in the woods.  They're the remnants of early homesteads and often attract grouse despite the overall maturity of the forest.   If you find creeks or swampy areas, hunt the edges of them.  The cover will be denser. If you can clearly identify stands of Beech, hunt them.
 Some of the best cover if you can find it will be stands of dogwood brush, pencil to hammer handle in diameter, with some alder on the edges.  This early in the season they often feed on dogwood berries and the density provides haven from predators.  It makes for tough shooting so use some strategy.  Get one guy on the sides or covering the back before the dog or other gunner pushes in and don't forget to take turns.
 Stands of prickly ash are also good, but murderous on the flesh (hence my username).  They're mostly found in reverting pastures alongside or near the dogwood.   You'll be hard-pressed to find a more bloodthirsty weed but it's good bird cover.  The trick to moving through it is to flow.  Don't stop, don't hesitate, just move like water and you'll be okay.
 Two other elements that will be critical to your success are conifers and slope.   If the cover looks great but there are no pines in sight, you probably won't find as many birds as places that do.  Remember, they almost always have an escape plan and there's nothing like dense stand of conifers for good hiding.
 Slope - not totally necessary but definitely worth looking for.  I've found that a cover with some slope will hold more birds than flatter areas.  If you're pushing up a hill, be extra ready when you're nearing the crest.   They'll often run to the top and wait for you to pass buy.  Once they figure out you're onto them they'll be ready to blow out before you are.  Beat them at their own game. (HT Briarscratch)

Robert Cleminson (British, active 1865-1868) On the grouse moor 18 x 14 in. (45.7 x 35.5 cm.)

Field time

Larsen was back in the field on Sunday after his conformation showings with Aki Friday and Saturday in Jonesboro, Georgia.

The highlight of the morning for Tim and me was sending Larsen after a cripple.  Neither of us knew any more than the general area where the bird went down.  Moreover, we did not pursue the bird right away.  Instead, after the shot and lost bird, we went back to field training and forced Larsen to quarter, flush, and sit.

Tim decided that the time was right, and I heeled Larsen toward the general area.  I then sent him as I would for field work.  Tim told me not to send him on a hunt-dead because we were not asking him to take a line anywhere.  We wanted him to hunt.

Tim and I sat back and watched as the dog worked a deadfall, then moved upfield along the tree line.  He wheeled and doubled back, working the air and the ground.  This was all Larsen.  We were spectators.  We heard the cluck of the chukar as it tried to run, but Larsen was on him.  Larsen brought him back for the retrieve.

As much fun as it is to train the dog, it is inspiring to see the spaniel take the initiative and bring back the bird.

The show goes on

Aki and Larsen are working center ring in Jonesboro this weekend.  Aki is applying her conformation handling skills under the heat of actual competition.  She finished second (out of two) to Trooper on Saturday but was entitled to go to the owner-handler group giving her a second twirl around the ring.

Aki gets a quick kiss from Larsen before the two of them head to Jonesboro.

Teeth cleaning done

Larsen’s done.  They are just watching him, but he is waking up.  His teeth cleaned up “nicely”.  No decay.  The vet said that he might be groggy for the next day or two, so TLC as far as exercise goes.  She thought I should feed him half rations today and if he holds it down, I can return to normal.  I might moisten the kibble with warm water to make it easier to eat since his gums might be sore.  Chicken and rice are fine too for a day or so.  The vet will keep him until the end of the day, just to observe him.

Cleaning a dog's teeth involves a big tradeoff because of the potential adverse effects of the anesthesia. Clean teeth and healthy gums are critically important to overall health, however, and it is worth the risk to get rid of buildup and the potential for gingivitis and worse.   

Safety first

Some pretty remarkable passages regarding the lack of gun safety from sporting writer Johnson J. Hooper's 1852 book "Dog & Gun."  You wonder if the "Frank" described in the paragraphs lived to a ripe old age and died of natural causes, perhaps unlike so many of his friends!

Johnson J. Hooper, Dog & Gun, (1856) (University of Alabama Press).

Speaking of the improper and careless way in which some sportsmen handle their guns, brings to mind a day’s shooting I once had with one of the quickest shots I ever hunted with.

 While reloading, I was startled by the shot of Frank’s gun whizzing by me.  It appeared, by his account, that he had placed the gun across his shoulders, and in turning around, the cock caught by a twig which raised it sufficiently to strike the cap and explode.  He had shot a sapling asunder just about the height of my head, which caused me to think it a better subject to experiment upon than the head of a father of six children.

 . . .  but as to myself, I was sufficiently engaged in trying to dodge the muzzle of Frank’s gun, as he sometimes dropped the same in line for my heart, as we mounted a fence, or grasping it with both hands across his shoulders.

 . . .  and placing the butt of his gun on the ground, he held the bird up for me to see, and while he was so doing Dash jumped up to get the bird, and as his foot came down, it caught the cock of Frank’s gun; and as the hammer was down on the cap (instead of being at half-cock), another explosion occurred,--taking fortunately nothing but Frank’s hat brim; but had his hand been on the muzzle [as he often did], one of the best shots in the United States would have been minus a finger or two.

Bass Pro polish & waterproofing

I want something on my boots that keep the leather from cracking.  I'm a bit dissatisfied with mink oil.  The stuff goes on great and gives the leather a nice look and feel (although a little greasy) but it seems to wash off with the morning dew.  When your boots dry out at day's end, they look as parched as they had been before you oiled them.  I'm ready for something new.

At Bass Pro, I saw some polish that also doubled as a water proofing.  My experiments with regular Kiwi shoe polish were actually more successful than with mink oil.  Polish seemed to stay put after a day in the field, but I wondered if it was simply the color that stuck and not the oil.  I was hopeful the Bass Pro would do something.

The Bass Pro stuff was a little stiff to put on.  You had to warm it and really rub it in.  That's not a problem if it stays with the leather at least through a dewy morning.  The results so far are very nice.  The boots look more like oiled leather than polished leather.

I'll try the boots this weekend and find out if the Bass Pro boot polish passes the morning dew test.

   Bass Pro polish/waterproofing/conditioner.

The look is more along the lines of a dark oil or tanning rather than polish, which is perfect for a field boot.