RE: Thoughts on training
Mite:
I have had this same issue with several dogs, they all whoa wonderful in training, but you get them in the field and its a new animal... Been there done that believe me.
The only way I have been able to get a dog to be steady to wing and shot is tostay on their butts like a rat on a cheeto... You need to use an ecollar, and I use "careful" when the dogs are just on point and starting to creep, then "whoa", when I am flushing, 10 out of 10 times your dog is going to ignore this "whoa", well, ecollar.... Everytime he breaks, he is corrected. Put them between my legs and grab their chest with a firm "whoa". Meaning to the dog that the correction was for breaking on the whoa... This takes persistence like with all training, but more so just for the fact that its a force break of sorts. Gradually you will see some progress.Just make sure you release the dog for the retrieve or to continue hunting, I use "lets go" or "dead bird" depending on a kill or not.
Also** When dogs go on point they are given whoa, which is basically stay. They are not allowed to move unless I say so. So when I get runners (birds that sneak off) I will walk ahead 5 steps or so and try to flush, if the bird ran, then I give a "lets go" to sort of let the dog workit out and reset his point on the new location... Makes sense I hope. Its important you dont leave the dog frozen on point for too long tring to flush before you let him reset, then the dog isnt really gettting to hunt... If you dont flush right away, step back and release the dog to reset. Let the sniffer find the bird.
Good luck.