Thread: Game bird diary for all

Continuing with the idea of breaking away from my "here's a photo of a dead thing" here's a short write up.

This morning I headed out at the crack, to a spot an hour or so away. It is largely rolling hills cropped in lucerne, with massive patches of gorse dispersed throughout providing ample cover. I have found it seems to hunt better about mid-morning, as the birds have fed right out into the open, providing excellent running:



There are ample roosting trees, and tons of old man inkweed. This bush under a stand of pines would be over 6 foot tall. Where there's inkweed there's roosters:



We had the wind right from where parked at the farmers shed, so set the dog loose. The lucerne was too low here, so I could see birds getting up and away maybe 50m ahead of the dogs beat. Nothing to do but pick her up and get to the next field where the lucerne would have been about calf height, much better cover.

What a difference a bit of cover makes. on her first cast to my left, she had a find off the bat. Since she is a young dog in her first bird season, I am only shooting to her points to ensure it all sinks in, and maintaining her steadiness to wing and shot... Think whistle in mouth while shooting sort of stuff. I asked her to produce, which she did, and one hen got up. She usually drops to flush , but not today, she remained on point. So I stepped towards her to enforce the drop, and a second hen got away. This time she dropped. Cheeky bitch!

Now where there's girls there's boys. While hens will sit, often their wing beats will send crafty older cocks running as opposed to flying. So how to deal with a crafty running birds? Look for the most likely looking bit of nearby cover, and send the dog downwind of his planned escape route. In this case a stand of gorse alongside a fenceline. I sent Betty left, she got three quarters of the way to the fence, maybe 40m, and locked up. The rest is history, well for this bird anyway. Just when you thought I'd changed, here are the dead thing photos:





Steady to wing and shot, retrieved to hand, I'm very happy with her and there is a quick round of "gooood girls" for Betty. Where do you go from there? When it's going good, it can only go backwards so picked her up and home we went!

Wasn't until I got him home I had a look at him. A young bird, with very small spurs, I'd guess a yearling or thereabouts. Yet he went 28 bars on his tail? Must have been living well in the crops. What the pictures don't convey is his weight, I'd like to find some scales and weigh him. For a small bird, he's heavy. And I certainly can't say that's due to all the lead I put in him

Baz, (aka 'onesie' due to all his loose skin) the new recruit, approves