Thread: Game bird diary for all

Originally Posted by gsp follower

its one reason i hunt quail a lot alone
no witnesses except the dog and so far he,s keepin stum
one did get unlucky yesterday avo, 3 shots at a covey flush of 30 birds 1 down.

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id load yesterdays one but telecom tells me my phone,s not set up to email pics which is pretty funny cos up untill a few days ago i didnt have a problem grrrrrrr

A fairly rushed morning, started off with the wind on our back so a decision was made to walk to the other end of the forest and work our way back. Even tho the dog is old enough to know how to work the wind, it still puts the odds against him and I'm not keen to set him up to fail.

Ironically enough, walking on the beaten track with Aki on the lead 5-6 pheasants were having a gathering, and not long after 2 more were flushed behind us. Couldn't blame the dog for not picking up any scent, I worked him too far froward. But he had to be blamed for not listening to my stop whistle, I had a bit of a chat with the specialist before we continued.

No bird contact for the next couple of hours. For last I left a nice little spot where I usually find brown quail, before we call it the day maybe we can find a sparrow or two. No luck there too...

To give it a bit more irony I change the #9s for some Fiocchi #6s as we exit the scrubby quail grounds and Aki slams on point as soon as I put the gun over the shoulder.... Couple of snaps with my phone and we moved in for the flush...Not to rush things, I left the first bird go, but the second one was dead on the sights so I gave it a nudge... The specialist was steady so a pat on the head was deserved...dead brownie in the bag, off to the car and home for a beer....
Sorry for the photo quality...

Love your reports Petros

Go Aki!!! Shocking quality of fotos

Nice Pete

Originally Posted by Petros_mk

A fairly rushed morning, started off with the wind on our back so a decision was made to walk to the other end of the forest and work our way back. Even tho the dog is old enough to know how to work the wind, it still puts the odds against him and I'm not keen to set him up to fail.

Ironically enough, walking on the beaten track with Aki on the lead 5-6 pheasants were having a gathering, and not long after 2 more were flushed behind us. Couldn't blame the dog for not picking up any scent, I worked him too far froward. But he had to be blamed for not listening to my stop whistle, I had a bit of a chat with the specialist before we continued.

No bird contact for the next couple of hours. For last I left a nice little spot where I usually find brown quail, before we call it the day maybe we can find a sparrow or two. No luck there too...

To give it a bit more irony I change the #9s for some Fiocchi #6s as we exit the scrubby quail grounds and Aki slams on point as soon as I put the gun over the shoulder.... Couple of snaps with my phone and we moved in for the flush...Not to rush things, I left the first bird go, but the second one was dead on the sights so I gave it a nudge... The specialist was steady so a pat on the head was deserved...dead brownie in the bag, off to the car and home for a beer....
Sorry for the photo quality...
Attachment 27929

Attachment 27930

no wonder people think we,re mad spending hours and a not insignificant amount of wedge to bring home a bird not much bigger than a blackbird

They do not know what they are missing...

Loving the dog photos and sweet reports, keep them coming.

no wonder people think we,re mad spending hours and a not insignificant amount of wedge to bring home a bird not much bigger than a blackbird

Friend and I drove over 2 hr on Sunday, spent 3.5hr hunting and got 1 quail. Mind you, we missed a few.

Originally Posted by GSP

Friend and I drove over 2 hr on Sunday, spent 3.5hr hunting and got 1 quail. Mind you, we missed a few.

the trick is to figure out why you missed them
everytime i think i have i manage to miss them in a different way.
so close yet so fast and manueverable the little buggers.
what gets me is the amount of non gunners who say '' you got a shotgun how can you miss ''
''fucken easily'' i reply
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quail is about 15 ft in front and just on the edge of the right hand tire track two thirds thru the curve

Originally Posted by gsp follower

what gets me is the amount of non gunners who say '' you got a shotgun how can you miss ''
''fucken easily'' i reply

hahah... I get that quite often.
Funniest part on Monday morning in the office I get asked "how was your weekend" so I end up getting excited explaining every detail about how the dog ran, where the birds were, how was the weather, and the final straw is when I say "but I missed everything"....
Whoever has asked me usually stands there confused questioning my sanity....

They are very cunning. They fly out when you turn your back, out behind trees, into trees where you never can see them and most amazing is their ability to land and just dissapear. We saw a covey running and it flew into 1 tree. We sneaked around behind the tree in an effort to flush them back out onto the low scrub on the river bed. Some we shot at and missed and probably half went out onto the river bed. We never found one of them. We stopped off at another area on the way home and a dozen or so flushed from manuka and scrub like a rocket heading for the really thick stuff (those huge blackberry patches ) and I was lucky to hit one and thought I might have to call my friend over with his dog to help find it as my dog didn't see it at all, but he soon came out the bushes with it. I was lucky it wasn't a runner.

I know I make the mistake, but I have figured it out that sometimes we, not our dogs, but we get too close to the covey...scenerio...dog on point (you know instinctively that it is not pheasant by the way dog is pointing) we move on up...like the lifesaving Hiemlich manoeuvre which is now deemed unnecessary, I have found that by staying back a bit and letting the pellets reach out, even I shoot better and somehow you can better concentrate of the individuals and not the mass because you can see more of the picture than just a glorious blur of grey...

Originally Posted by GSP

They are very cunning. They fly out when you turn your back, out behind trees, into trees where you never can see them and most amazing is their ability to land and just dissapear. We saw a covey running and it flew into 1 tree. We sneaked around behind the tree in an effort to flush them back out onto the low scrub on the river bed. Some we shot at and missed and probably half went out onto the river bed. We never found one of them. We stopped off at another area on the way home and a dozen or so flushed from manuka and scrub like a rocket heading for the really thick stuff (those huge blackberry patches ) and I was lucky to hit one and thought I might have to call my friend over with his dog to help find it as my dog didn't see it at all, but he soon came out the bushes with it. I was lucky it wasn't a runner.

i got you beat i know where a big covey roosts
right thinks i flush them from roost trees follow and begin all time best quail tally.
uhuhuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh nah the little bastards just jumped from one tree to another so i chased them around about an acre before even i realised they,d made a dick of me .
the dog had worked it out long before and never left his pointing up the succession of trees.
i could hve beaned a couple every time the changed trees but that aint hunting so i content myself catching them occasionaly in the scrub or ambushing them on thier way back from a free feed .

, I have found that by staying back a bit and letting the pellets reach out, even I shoot better and somehow you can better concentrate of the individuals and not the mass because you can see more of the picture than just a glorious blur of grey...

you send the dog to flush then?same but actually taking a step back and sideways giving your self more room can help to.
your right being to close to the flush is sometimes worse than being to far away

I flush brownies each day. I must give this bird shooting a go on day too