Had a great afternoon with the Irish...
 

As some on here remember I enjoy hunting with my Irish Setters.. I haven't had them out for a couple of years due to issues with my knee. I also have been trying to do some bow hunting. I keep hearing people around here complaining that there are no birds around. I told them to get out into the cuttings and you will find them. Those heater hunters are having a hard time seeing birds because of those cuttings. The cuttings allow the sun to get into the woods now so the birds do not come out and set by the road very much anymore..
Anyways I took my male Irish Setter out for a run this afternoon. It has been showering off and on making the conditions wet to say the least. Although I do not have any pics from the hunt as my camera has drowned three times to many. I wouldn't dare take the wife's and have that get drowned. So I did the next best thing and took a pic of the birds for you. We saw a total of eighteen birds which I feel is a super great day concidering we haven't been out together hunting for a couple of years.. I had two misses and four good solid hits. The birds were not holding good for Rusty to stay on point plus the fact we both are a bit rusty anyways.. Here is a pic of our prize for the day which is the limit on ruffed grouse..

No... No gun lasers at all. These will take off full throttle weaving threw the trees when they can. I was a little slow but my dog is a pointer so it worked out well for us. My female Roxie is a flusher and very good at locating birds if I need to take her out for a run. She is small tipping the scales at 45lbs. while Rusty is around 70lbs. They will work good together as well. They both use to love hunting birds.. As it shows right now Rusty has not forgotten what it is about. I do have to try and work on his retrieving skills some more though..

What a great day Phil! Man - that is some fine shooting - you aint too rusty from that two year layoff. 18 birds jumped - that is more than I have ever seen in one day in the lower 48. I have seen more than that in Alaska - but that is a whole different ball of wax.
Sure am glad you are healthy enough to get out with the Setters again.

Good to hear you have a healthy population of Ruffed Grouse.
I wish we had the same but there is so few that I dare not shot them around here.
Good outing and good luck for the rest of the year.

Hey Phil, take care of that knee. Wow, 18 birds. That must have been a fun day. We are in the middle of pheasant season here but these are pen raised since West WA doesn't have the weather or land for wild ones. It's not that bad considering its only a ten minute drive to the hunting grounds.

Thanks guys.. I had a great day and everything went well except for the weather being lousey.. We saw several wood**** (timberdoodles) as well.. I have trouble hitting those little rockets so I do not even try on them any more. Prolly where an Improve Cylinder choked barrel would work best. I am sticking with my Modified barrel though. I am using the 2/3" express long range loads in number 6 off a 28inch barrel. The birds sometimes will fly down a skidder trail allowing me a little more time to draw a bead better. It works well for me as you can see.

Yeah Mite, I have to be carefull of my knee that is for sure. I had it scoped out back then and it still bothers me from time to time. But we know how hunting with what we choose for hunting dogs can be a blast. I have been missing that for quite some time now. So I had one of them out and I choose the slower one so it ould be easier to handle. The birds were not holding very good so it made for quite a few draw ups but that was it for the most part. We still had a fantastic afternoon of it though with around 4 hours of hitting the cuttings.

Those ones up here complaining about not having many birds have no real idea. They ride around on the dirt roads hoping to see a bird setting on the banks soaking up the sun. When what they need to do is get out and walk around in some of our cuttings that are a year or two old.

Its great that you could finally make it out after all that time. This was indeed a super hunt for those ruffs. They are indeed a challenge. You and your Irish did very well.:cool2:

Thanks everyone...

I took Rusty out for another afternoon of hunting today.. It was quite warm and the birds were not holding up for much of anything. We did put up 12 birds today. I shot at 5 but only connected to 2 birds. We beat the brush for around 5 hours. The birds were being a bit difficult but I enjoyed it as well as my Irish Setter..

I am not sure but we did see a coyote when we were driving into the road heading to our hunting ground. Perhaps they were in there harrassing the birds some. It was a very beatiful animal that I wished I had the fire power for with me. It was a mix of black and gray for the most part. Looking almost like a small german shepard with gray and a little bit of brown mixed in the bottom of it's tail. This one makes the 6th coyote I have seen with 7 total days of hunting. The rest have not been in the area I am hunting though.

i remember days like that here in pa. not anymore.seeing 2 grouse a day is big day now.
irish did it again.

toby and me got smoked by a 16 yr old springer on pheasants and i mean SMOKED.

no doubt in my mind now that springer is best i have seen on pheasants in over 45 years hunting.
its hard for me to say that when i like labs so much but we got our a kicked today.

I have a friend that has a bird farm that I took my Irish to. He had 2 springers until one of them ( Saddie ) got into his pantry and ate a box of raisins. He had to take his dog to the vet but the dog couldn't be saved. It was a good working dog on the pheasants as well. I took my Irish there for some training and he was quite impressed with Rusty when he turned 2. I have not been up training my dogs after that. It was cold and windy that day and we got our 4 pheasants plus 2 bonus pheasants. There is something about the Irish Setters besides looks that makes me enjoy hunting with them..

I wouldn't worry about it. Go take Toby out and enjoy him. Sometimes when a dog like a springer will get on a ground scent, they won't let go. And if its old scent - someone flushed it recently, it can be frustrating.

Last Saturday was a test of my patience. Hunting partner has a brit and hunts very thoroughly. Problem was he was stuck in a small area which my dog already ran through - again and again. But his dog kept sniffing the ground. I mean its one thing to trust his dog but another to beat an area to death. All the while, I was watching other hunters walk the entire field ahead of us. We spent - me standing in one place, at least a half hour in an area of about 50' square.

Update on my bird hunting with Rusty.. We have had a great year so far with a score of 22 to grouse to date several misses and 1 wood****.. Man I have a hard time hitting those little things... LOL But, they are fun to try and hit anyways.. We were hitting them good for a while with 4,4,4,4, and then 2,2,2.. The birds are still plentifull but are flying way to far a head on us. They simply will not hold up very good.. I am thinking they are used to being hunted and shot at by now..

Also my knee has been bothering me more at times.. Maybe I am over doing it some.. After my season is over I will check into getting a shot in it..

I'm glad you're having fun this season. I'm having mix emotions. Yesterday, I got my limit of two birds in about 20 mins. The first bird was in an area which someone's lab stomped over. My dog briefly tracked it before it flushed wild. Got the second soon after - pointed I flushed. So, I walked back to the car and put away the gun and went back to see if anyone was dog-less (also to get my dog more exercise). I stayed away from the fields so as not to bother other hunters and not wanting to flush birds.

Well, I was standing in an area which half a dozen hunters walked through when my dog goes on point on the edge of a half football sized field. I walk over and flush one bird - the other one my dog caught. Ugh. I'm thinking at least she's finding birds where everyone's lab is missing.

Then this afternoon, I'm walking a nearby field when in front of me is a rooster with its eyes half closed. Wounded? I call my dog over and she runs past it! Call her again and she runs towards it but at five feet away, turns left and takes off. She gets to about two feet then the bird flushes, surprising both of us. Just when I'm thinking my dog has a good nose, she pulls a bonehead move like this one.

you guys have great bird hunting,we dont.we did ,boy grouse we had years ago but not now.

toby is still sick,he is on baytril/amoxacillin.he has blood in his urine.
vet thinks it may be kidney infection,we hope and not tumor in kidneys.
he lost 13 pds in about 11 months.down to 67 pds which is very low for male lab.
his waist is very thin .

i hope pills work but its been 4 weeks and still he has blood in his urine.

anyone run into this?

Never ran into that Sproulman - but I hope it's not a tumor and that the antibiotics work, and your dog gets well.

Sometimes mine will do something along those lines as well. I think it is more of a game they want to play or something. Mine will retrieve part time and other times runs to it and just stands and looks at it. Then takes off looking for another bird until I call him back to help me find the down bird again..

I am sorry to hear about toby sproul.. I hope all it is, is a kidney infection and nothing more than that. Did you have him checked for kidney stones? That can be simular to what you are discribing. Although I still hope it is just an infection..