His 1st pheasant hunt was a success

[stew71]

This weekend was the season opener for pheasant here in Northern California. So...I took our 2 year old lab out for his 1st hunt. We've been doing some training to see if he showed any propensity for hunting. I think he did pretty well for his 1st time out!! I'm pretty sure he had as much fun as I did.

[piller]

Very nice.

[kimwcook]

Very nice.

I'll say.

I grew up with a ton of pheasants around, but we never had a hunting dog. I did all my flushing by myself. A couple of years ago I went hunting with a buddy and his german longhaired pointer. What a fiasco. Granted the dog was young, but he was so hyper he was ineffectual and more a hinderance than an asset.

[Pitchy]

Congrats on a fine hunt.

[Nath]

Brilliant

It's nice to see you found him a tree to pee against

N

[homefront]

A pup to be proud of!

Anytime you pack the shotgun, that dog is gonna go nuts! Once they get pheasant up their nose and figure out that flush leads to shot / leads to retrieve, you've made a hunter.

For me, the dog work is a big part of the hunt.

[Rube Burrows]

Nice.

[Mike D.]

Cache Creek? Wild birds are VERY scarce these days, due to fence to fence and row to row ag practices. On our places we used to bag ten limits on the opener, but I haven't bothered to try in a dozen years. Another problem is the overuse of insecticides, an issue with eliminating the bugs that chicks need to eat. No bugs, no hatchling survival. No little ones, no adults.

[2ndovc]

Great pictures! Really makes me miss my old Lab..

jb

[stew71]

Cache Creek? Wild birds are VERY scarce these days, due to fence to fence and row to row ag practices. On our places we used to bag ten limits on the opener, but I haven't bothered to try in a dozen years. Another problem is the overuse of insecticides, an issue with eliminating the bugs that chicks need to eat. No bugs, no hatchling survival. No little ones, no adults.

This was on some private land out near Dunnigan. There are a few clubs in the area so it was a mix of wild and pen-raised birds. These guys hunkered down until we nearly stepped on them...or Cody spooked them to flight.

But yeah Mike, wild birds are far and few these days. Thankfully, there are still some areas that have decent numbers.

[Mike D.]

Some of the guys from our duck club hunted pheasants all day Saturday with ZERO success. Four well trained dogs and not a bird to be seen. All freshly cut rice and huge plots of fallow weeds and grass. LOTS of coyote stuff, so you know what that means.

We now have two new two man tanks in side by side, which means that we have to get out and dress the area around them ASAP, before the water fills the pond. I can't wait for the ducks and geese.

[stew71]

My wife's aunt & uncle run a dairy farm down outside of Lodi and have several hundred acres of feed corn. They've tried to plant pheasant in the past, but the coyotes have decimated them. I have an open invitation to cull as many 'yotes as possible.