Dogs on point

No matter how many times a bird hunter walks up on a pointing dog, it never seems to lose it’s excitement. Anyhow, I know that holds true for me. Yesterday was a testament to that fact for me.

I went to yet another spot hoping to find some birds and hoping that my trigger hand would work better. From the get go the dogs were on a mission to find birds. Grady at his mach 1 pace and Jake methodically covering the ground and making sure I was always in sight. His hearing has gotten worse and so he ranges less. The first hour found nothing. No poop, scent or even a hint that birds were there. But the excitement was still in the air just watching the boys searching. The quietness finally was interupted by my Alpha alerting me that Jake had treed his quary 75 yards away.

The short walk produced a nice covey of huns and after much fumbling around to get the safety off I actually dropped a bird. And it was the one I was shooting at. What a great feeling to see the old boy doing what he has done thousands of times for me. He truly is a chukar champion. Of course with the report of the shotgun, Grady was soon there checking out the action, but not before Jake had already begun the retrieve.

Shooting wise I should have stopped right there. The next several shots produced nothing but cuss words as I tried to figure out how to push the safety off with a thumb that has no feeling yet. I even tried taking the safety off before I approached the point, but that produced an unnatural feeling. I still was pushing on the safety as I leaned into the shot creating a clean miss. It was like learning how to shoot all over again. It’s amazing how one little change like that messes with my mind.

After several misses on some great dog work I convinced myself to just go with the flow of what has worked so well for many of years. If the safety didn’t push off as I swung on the shot so be it. A few times it didn’t and I was surprised at how bad I was flinching when the gun didn’t go off. But my shooting got much better.

Once we started getting into the birds it was non stop action. The boys were taking turns on points and I was reminded time after time why I love chukar hunting so much. Sometimes it takes time to find the birds but once you get to that point the action can be unbelievable beautiful.

Each point I approached hoping that I wouldn’t dissapoint the dogs freom a chance to get a bird in the mouth. I think they enjoy that almost as much as I enjoy their point. After a while the hits became more common than the misses and the boys were bringing birds back to me.

Although I was still mending from stupidity, I was in a place I loved to be with my dogs. On a chukar hill.

And so often, all three of us got to enjoy the action together. It’s so much fun working as a team.

By the end of the day, I had covered 4 1/2 miles while Jake covered 10 1/2 miles to Grady’s 22. I was just shy of 1500 feet of elevation gain and have no clue on the amount of elevation gain Grady had. What a wonderful way to spend the day. Following two fantastic chukar dogs whose only object was to find some birds, point them and retrieve them back to me just to make me happy.

And happy we were as we came off the mountain. We even had some good meat to enjoy eating. One of the very few times I got more huns than chukars.

Side note. Thanks Erik B. for the picture of your great outing with Breezy. She’s sure come a long way and become a great bird dog.