I got my first bird dog, an American Brittany, in the spring. I spent countless time that spring until bird season working on training and getting him on birds. I bought quite a few pigeons that my buddies and I would run him on. He was shaping into a pretty good puppy, fetching dead birds, even live birds he would fetch with the softest mouth. Pointing was definitely natural as one would expect. We spent a lot of time on basic obedience especially recall. I never hunted with a bird dog before, but I knew I wanted a dog that would recall instantly.
Opening day of grouse season, I loaded up and headed to northern MN. I wasn’t expecting much over my 7 month old pup other than to have fun. It was supposed to be a hot day, so figured we would do a quick morning hunt.
I never hunted up there, but I did a little off-roading one time with some buddies so I had an idea of where to go. I had a beater pickup at the time so I was sending it through some pretty thick nasty trails that I wouldn’t drive down anymore. I finally got to a spot that I didn’t dare go any further, and it seemed like grouse country. So we unloaded there and decided to see how it goes.
We started walking down an old logging road. There was a good mix of trees. On my left was some thick young aspens and off to the right was a mix of young spruce and old with a swamp behind that. Not long into the hunt my dog goes on point in the young aspens. I had to take a quick second to soak in the moment, but I wasn’t to sure how long he would hold. Sure enough he ended up bumping the bird and it flew perfectly over the trail I was on. Some say to never shoot bumped birds, but I sure didn’t care! I wanted to get that first bird for both me and my dogs sake. I was able to capitalize and my dog instantly fetched the grouse and delivered it into the heal position. I had to take a little time to soak it all in, I just got my first bird over my dog, and everything I dreamed of and all the work was paying off.
We only hunted for another half hour and didn’t see anymore birds, but I couldn’t possibly have been more excited. Not only to get him contact with a bird, but for him to point it and for me to capitalize on the shot, with the perfect recall, was the perfect first hunt. Six years later and that is a normal hunt, except my shooting has gotten a little rusty. We have had a few hunts where we would get into birds like crazy. The best hunt in terms of bird contacts, we flushed 25 birds in less than 3 hours. I won’t say how many we came home with, but I’ve gotten more interested in getting him on birds. Don’t get me wrong, I still try to get my limit, but I am just as pleased not getting any.