A friend and I were talking about retrieves the other day and it got me to thinking about some of my old dogs. Some of these, if not all of these, I have written about on the blog before. Like any real good story, they are worth repeating. I have pictures of most of these dogs but not where I can put them on this post but there will be pictures of dogs I still have.
Mann running an edge with a smile on his face.
Abby pointing a chukar.
Bodie pointing.
A lot of years ago I had a grand daughter of Boseann’s Mosely. I had used my male, Rusty, to breed a daughter of Boseann’s Mosely and got pick of the litter. If I remember correctly she raised 13 pups. So I had a bunch to pick from. I had never had a tri-color setter before and wanted to try one. So that was my pick. A beautiful tri-colored female that I named Susie.
Back in those days we just took the young dogs hunting and the wild birds trained them. And Susie was a good one. She started right out holding her birds really well. She covered more ground than anything I had ever had before but once she went on point she would stay, as long as the birds did. She never intentionally flushed birds.
This was long before GPS collars and sometimes she was hard to find but usually was in front of where I saw her last. Sometimes way in front. I never worked with her on retrieving. And she never attempted to retrieve until I knocked a bird down in a deep ravine. She went right over the edge after the quail.
The sides on the ravine were almost straight up and it was really deep. Probably, 30 or 40 feet deep. But when I got to the edge I could see her with the bird in her mouth. Since this was the first bird she had ever tried to retrieve, I didn’t know what she would do. I called her and she started up the side of the ravine. She made it about 2/3 of the way and slid back down.
We moved a short distance and I called her again. She ran at the side of the ravine and got closer but slid back down. I walked back and forth trying to find another less steep place but to no avail. The ravine went as far as I could see both ways. I put my gun down, laid on my belly and called her. She still had the bird as she tried again to get to me. I just barely brushed her head before she slid back down.
Sally
I was hunting by myself and really didn’t want to wind up down in that ravine but I inched as far down as I felt comfortable doing and called her again. This time she got high enough I could just get a finger in her collar and pull her up. She dropped the bird in my hand and went back to hunting like it was no big deal.
Susie’s dad, Rusty, was also a good retriever. I had worked with him on retrieving but he was, mostly, natural. A friend, Kermit Maxwell, and I were hunting south of Nevada Missouri. It had rained the night before and water was standing everywhere. The place we were hunting had some holes scattered through out that were almost like post holes. After the rain they were all full of water.
One of our dogs pointed a covey that got up on the other side of a brush pile. Rusty ran and retrieved the quail I had killed and brought it right back. Kermit said he had dropped one just to the right of the brush pile. We took Rusty to the area and he looked but didn’t immediately come up with anything.
Boss honoring Sally.
I don’t give up easily on birds that are knocked down. Kermit and I were trying to find the bird and Rusty was still looking. I had my back to them, looking at the ground when I heard Kermit laughing and he said, “he got that SOB. It was down at the bottom of one of those holes and he ran his head under water to get it.” Kermit swore his head was so far under that his collar was wet. His collar was wet whether it was from that or not.
Then there was Windypoint’s First Lady. I bought her from a guy in St. Joseph Missouri without knowing anything about her pedigree. She was the best retriever I’ve ever had. She, too, was a natural retriever until she decided to quit. Which was the last day of season her first year. She had retrieved really well all year until the last day. I had had Rusty who retrieved well and Susie that did really well before I got Lady. I liked for my dog to retrieve.
So I force broke Lady. It only took about 2 weeks. I thought there is nothing to teaching a dog to retrieve. I’ve done several since then and none were as easy as she was.
Boss on point with Abby backing.
There are so many stories of her retrieves that I can’t do all of them but here are some favorites. She was fairly young when Don Bowlen and I were hunting north of Abilene Kansas. I knocked a rooster pheasant down and we had several dogs hunting dead when Lady got to us. She came through the area and didn’t even slow down. Went right on through. I told Don that I was going to see what she did.
The other dogs scoured the area and tried to leave but I kept them in. About 5 minutes later Lady came in with the pheasant in her mouth. This was before GPS collars, so I don’t know how far she had to chase it to get it, but she had it.
I had her near Abilene Kansas another time hunting with a friend on his lease with a bunch of guys. They were 6 or 7 of us walking through a corn field when a huge covey of quail flushed. It was at least a 40 yard shot but I knocked one down that fell near a hedge row. The dogs didn’t see it go down and all of the guys were pheasant hunters. They wanted to go on and find some pheasants. I marked the bird as well as I could from the spot I was in.
This is Mann pointing a covey with Abby in the middle and Boss close to the camera, honoring.
We circled this field and a few others and it was getting dusky dark when we got back to the trucks. I put my other dogs up and Lady and I started toward that hedge row to find the quail. There were a couple of guys cleaning birds as we went by I said I’m going to find that quail I knocked down. They laughed and said, “If you find it, we’ll clean it”.
The hedge row was about 300 yards from the trucks and I came in from another direction than where I was when the bird went down. When we got close I said, “hunt dead, hunt dead”. Lady went about 10 yards and picked up that quail. Now that was pure luck. But when I went right back and tossed that quail on the cleaning table and said, “Clean that for me, please”. Those two guys were plenty surprised and impressed.
The only time I made real money on her retrieves was when Vince Dye and I were hunting near Greensburg Kansas. We had turned the dogs loose and were just entering the field when Vince said, “Bet you a quarter for the first rooster”. I was ready for that. We hadn’t gone 200 yards when just as his dog, Roxy, pointed, a rooster pheasant flushed. It never got very high but it came my way. When I shot it hit the ground hard. I just knew I was going to make a quarter off Vince.
Abby pointing another single.
The dogs ran to the area where the pheasant had fallen, but nothing. Vince’s dog Roxy was a really good retriever, too, and we almost never lost a bird. I had a GPS collar on the dogs this time and as Lady came through and after a few seconds was gone, I checked the GPS. She was moving and eventually was over a hundred yards away.
About that time we noticed Roxy on point just a little way away. When we walked in a covey of quail flushed going Vince’s way. He dropped a bird that Roxy saw fall. She scooped it up and as she got close I could see that white head on the rooster quail just shining. Just a few steps before she got to Vince Lady dropped a bedraggled pheasant rooster in my hand. She must have had a time with it. It was dead when she handed it to me but it had no tail feathers and was missing a lot more. But I got my quarter from Vince.
Lady had a rough last year. She lived to be 13 and almost made it to 14. Opening day in Kansas she was attacked by a huge mule deer buck. I wrote about that in October of 2013. If you want to read that just go into the archives and select Oct. 2013. But she healed and I hunted her occasionally. She had a really good tail when she was young but in her old age she couldn’t raise it any more. She was pretty slow too. But she still hunted and when she stopped there were birds in front of her. If her tail wagged the birds were running.
Boss pointing a single.
Her last hunt was near Emporia Kansas. She was in front of me about 50 yards when I saw her go on point. There was a huge plum thicket in front of her. I saw her tail wagging and knew the birds were running. I knew this was, probably, her last hunt and I really wanted one more retrieve from her. But I knew these birds were going to get up out of range on the other end of the huge plum thicket.
The birds, when they flushed, were so far ahead I couldn’t hear them but Lady did. I saw her head come up and she started moving. I looked above the plum thicket and real high one quail came back over me. Lady saw it bounce as it hit the ground and brought it to me. I took it from her and gave her the head. We were close to the truck and I put her up. A good way for a dog to end their career.
Another single with Boss in the back ground.
I should have told about Lady getting the head of most of the birds she ever retrieved. She only got them from the quail. As she got older and slower the other dogs were beating her to the retrieve but she still thought the head was hers even if someone else retrieved. That was just what she charged for a days hunt. And most of the time she got them. I still miss her.