My name is Mike and I grew up with bird dogs (Some good, some not so good) in the Midwest. One of the first memories I have is that of standing on my tip toes looking into a television box (they were a lot bigger back then) at a little English Setter puppy. We called him Mac, as my dad was fond of short names for hunting dogs. He was white with two orange ears and a spot in the middle of his back. I watched my dad train him, using Richard Wolters' book Gun Dog. His first year or two I was too small to go along, but I used to wait anxiously to see if my dad brought home any of the pretty bobwhite quail from the farms he hunted in the area around our small hometown. I was fascinated with the birds, like all wild animals.
Eventually I grew old enough to tag along and it seemed as if I spent more time falling down than observing as I tried to keep up. The most memorable hunt in those early years happened on a farm owned by a family friend. The farmer had just finished combining corn ("shelling corn" we called it) and called my dad to say they had bumped a covey of quail and maybe he should take Mac over. My dad let me go along, but I was still years away from being old enough to carry a gun.
The farmer had seen the birds fly from the picked corn into the corner of a small, 4 or 5 acre, woodlot in the middle of a large field. When we arrived and got out of my dad's Chevy Blazer, he got his gun, a 20 gauge browning superposed, and then let Mac out. The corn was so freshly cut that the mellow smell of fresh corn cobs hung in the fall air. My dad told me to stay on the outside in the edge of the corn field as we walked along as he ran Mac in the edge of the woodlot. As we neared the southeast corner of the woods, Mac kept popping out and running out into the corn. My dad called him back in a few times and started to become a little annoyed. Mac darted out one last time to circle a car sized patch of beige fox tails in the yellow gold knee high corn stubble. As he came around the weeds, he slammed into a point, head and eyes focused intently on the fox tail, tail slightly above straight out behind him.
I yelled to Dad that Mac was on point, awed by having seen him lock up. As he arrived, my dad told me to kneel down so as not to be in the way when the birds started flying. When he walked in front of Mac, the sound of the birds all taking flight at once thrilled me and left an indelible impression. I saw a bird fall when my dad shot, and heard him command the fired up Setter to fetch. Having tried innumerable times to get him to fetch a ball in the yard, with no success, I told my dad "Mac won't fetch", and no sooner had the words left my lips than here came Mac with a quail in his mouth.
That was the day that I became a bird hunter. I didn't fire a shot, didn't carry a gun, didn't blow a whistle, or give a single command to the dog. I did see a bird dog slam into point, and I did hear the thunderous wings of a covey rise. For me, that is quail hunting. Walking along a picked field, corn, milo, maybe even a weedy soybean field. Following edges of woodlots, creek bottoms or old pastures gone to seed. I know there are other storied types of quail hunting and I've done them; Georgia horseback plantation hunts steeped in tradition, Texas hunts where you follow raw boned pointers from a seat on the front of a brush busting truck, and hunting the seeps and springs in the arid west for those beautiful valley quail.
That was the beginning, and from there it has been a wonderful journey. I have lived in quail and pheasant country, as well as in the West where I also hunted high desert, rimrock and mountain drainages for valley quail, chukar, sharptails, blue grouse, ruffed grouse, sage grouse, and hungarian partridge. I have traveled to hunt golden aspen stands for woodcock and grouse in the Great Lakes states and to Texas brush country where the number of coveys we found in a day was limited only by our ability or lack thereof to shoot a limit. Then I ended up in the Southeast. Home of the "gentleman bob" and the quail plantation with all of the pomp and circumstance involved.
But the years have not been full of bevies of wild birds around every oak mott, sagebrush draw, or stubble field. I have lived in or near major metropolitan areas and locales that were virtually devoid of wild birds. In fact, when I was just about old enough to carry a gun, my home area was hit with a blizzard, which our Department of Natural Resources later said had killed 95% of our quail. There have been a lot of years that my hunting was limited to "put-and-take" preserves or clubs where I belonged. Although at times it was a bit expensive, I still got excited about seeing my bird dogs do what they, and their ancestors were bred to do. In my opinion, there is no greater service we can do for our bird dogs than to let them experience the culmination of that innate drive.
And when I couldn't do it, I read about it. I vicariously went on hunts with George Bird Evans, shooting woodcock in the Barrens over Briar or Bliss. Gene Hill told me (and thousands of others) his often amusing and heartfelt stories. And then a guy named Dave Meisner published a magazine called Pointing Dog Journal, and I was elated. To be honest I remember worrying that there may not be enough readers to keep it in business, but thankfully it has lasted. Another periodical that influenced me was the Quail Unlimited monthly magazine. As a gift, my dad had signed me up as a charter member of QU when I was a teenager. The magazines didn't have a lot of hunting stories which were my favorites, but there were enough to keep me interested. Another topic that would appear on occasion was field trials run on quail. One of the articles I remember the most (because I'm a Setter fan) was about the great Tomoka from the Smith Setters famous kennel.
For many years, I did not want to compete in field trials; I turned down many invitations. To be completely honest, I was a little intimidated by the level of training which is required in some. Also, I mistakenly thought, as do many, that field trial dogs had to be run-offs. But I was always impressed when one of my dogs had Champions in its pedigree. Ultimately, it was the pedigrees and breedings of one of my dogs that got me started in trials.
I had been looking for a new Setter Pup after the second failed attempt to breed my female setter. There is almost no greater excitement than looking for just the right breeding. I had owned a dog out of grouse lines and was so impressed that I looked for something similarly bred. I found a pup out of good parents and was excited about it. The breeder was in Pennsylvania and I was in southeast Georgia, but I spoke to him by phone on a regular basis. He told me that both parents were field trial dogs that competed in grouse and woodcock trials. The dam had won some prestigious trials and the sire, he thought, had a lot of potential. Incidentally, he was correct as the sire went on to win the Grand National Grouse Championship. Hearing about the thought, planning and effort that had gone into the breeding I felt almost obligated to at least try to see if the little tricolored female I took home had field trial potential.
Well, you can probably see where my story was headed. That little Setter won a ribbon or two with a trainer. Then I brought her home and ran her in a few myself. I was going through a bit of a tough time in my life, and working with her was a great diversion from the stress. At the end of a very stressful week, I took her to a trial a few hours away where she was entered in a derby stake. She ran a great race and had two nice, not quite broke finds; earning a second place trophy that I couldn't stop glancing at all the way home. I don't know if it was the trophy itself, the pride in her performance, or the uplifting feeling at a low point in my life, but I was hooked.
So now, a decade later, I have handled and owned dogs run in grouse and woodcock (cover dog) trials, walking planted bird trials and horseback trials. I have owned and bred dogs that compete on the major shooting dog circuit and open All Age trials. I have been to the Northwoods of Wisconsin in the summer to watch dogs trained on woodcock and young grouse and I have ridden the rolling prairies behind big running Pointers and Setters where generations of bird dog men have developed field trial legends.
And I know how lucky I am. We are all fortunate to have so many different opportunities for our bird dogs in this great nation of ours. And we don't all have to agree. You can think the ruffed grouse is the king of the uplands while I love the numbers of points that a flight of woodcock gives. I can love the sound of an exploding covey of quail while you live for the cackle of a long tailed rooster. I can think there's no tougher competition than a grouse trial at Marienville, while you know in your heart that only three grueling hours at Ames decides the best bird dog in the country.
As I've already introduced myself, it is time to explain my goal for this blog, and the gamut of opportunities we all share provides the paint for my palette. I plan to share stories of hunts, trials, or litters whelped; current news or trends; and sometimes even (gasp) my opinions about issues either in hunting, breeding or trialing venues. I am no expert, but I have been so blessed to experience all I have within the bird dog realm. I hope that maybe I can fuel the fire in some as I had done for me by my father, by those writers I mentioned before and by so many wonderful people I've been associated with along the way.
Looking forward, I hope to post as often as I am able. Weekly, monthly, maybe, I don't know for sure. But some topics I have banging around in my head sound something like these: Summer on the Prairies; When Good Dogs happen to Bad People; Ruffed Grouse East vs West; Classic Shotguns Collect AND Use Them; Field Trial Judges - the Good, the Bad and the WTH?
Thank you for reading this blog. I hope that you'll come back again. Comments are welcome. Good luck, good hunting and give your four legged hunting partner an extra pat on the head.
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