Tur Bo
Blaze
Gailen Cooper asked me to run our young dogs together. He had to take a guy to a friend’s farm, in Kansas, to give a bid on walnut logs and while the guy was checking the walnut trees we would run dogs. This farm is a working farm, of about 400 acres, that has a lot of cover for deer, turkeys and quail.
The neat part of running dogs here, Gailen’s friend lets us use his utility vehicle. We put Sport Dog e-collars and Garmin Astro GPS collars on Tur Bo and his litter mate, Jack, that Gailen owns. We turned them loose on a gravel farm road. I walked a short distance with the dogs while Gailen brought the utility vehicle around. After the dogs figured out that we were in the utility vehicle they ran well.
There is a creek that runs through the farm for about a mile and it has good cover with the buffer strips down the side. The dogs ran the edges and occasionally went into the brush. When we got to the road, on the south, we gathered the dogs up and roaded them across a bridge then back into the cover along the creek. Both dogs started down an edge of a soy bean field and were about 400 yards ahead of us. We decided to go back to the south west corner so we called them back.
When we got back near the road we took the dogs to the west edge of the farm. Last year we had found covey of quail near the south west corner. The dogs checked the cover then went down a fence row along a soy bean field. As we crossed into some timber at the end of the soy bean field Jack went on point. We drove the utility vehicle up behind Jack and when Tur Bo came up he didn’t back. I have seen this before when you ride horses up beside a dog and another dog comes by it’s like the dog thinks everyone is just standing around. I whoaed Tur Bo.
We walked in front of Jack and nothing flushed. The dogs trailed a little while then went on. We hunted around a couple of small corn fields then back to the truck. Both dogs hunted hard but didn’t find any quail.
I put the collars on Blaze and Gailen had a young pointer male named Pal. Blaze and Pal were really running the edges and hunting in front. Just before we got to the road Blaze went into the cover on the edge of the creek with Pal crossing the corn field and hitting a fence row. Gailen stopped the utility vehicle in the corn field waiting on both dogs to come in. As we sat waiting a large covey of quail flushed, from some cover along the edge of the road and flew across the road. Blaze came in front and got excited by the quail smell on the ground in the corn field. As she went through some tall grass by the road she went on point. Before I could get to her a quail flushed from right in front of her and flew across the road. She hadn’t moved.
Blaze crossed the road and by that time I was walking in the roadway. I saw her go on point about 25 yards inside the brush and trees. The creek that crossed the farm we were hunting continued on the other side with a large area of brush on both sides of the creek. All of the quail had flown into this area. As I started to her Pal came in front of her and smelled the quail. Pal isn’t a year old and this was probably the first time he had ever seen a dog on point. As Pal pointed the quail flushed, staying real low but crossing the creek.
We continued through the brush toward where the main body of the covey had flown and Blaze pointed again. She was standing on a hump just before the ground dropped into the creek. Pal came across in front of me and saw Blaze and honored. I started toward Blaze and the quail flushed. When that quail flushed about 5 or 6 more flushed from near the creek and all of them flew across the creek.
We got both dogs back onto the property we were supposed to be on and took them to the south west corner then started north. We were about where Jack had pointed earlier when I checked the Garmin GPS and it showed Blaze on point. We started walking back to her and about 8 quail flew into the cover right beside us. Blaze was still on point and I started on to her when she started moving. She acted like she thought the quail had ran away because she just started trailing. She came in front of us and went on point. I started through the brush to her and a quail flushed in front of her. When that quail flushed it flew through the brush and out the other side with another 5 or 6 quail joining it. Blaze pointed one more time but when I got close to her went to trailing then went on.
We circled a couple more fields with out finding any more quail and hunted back to the truck. It was getting late so we loaded dogs and came home.
Gailen’s friend said he thought there were 4 or 5 coveys on this farm. Young dogs don’t know how to follow up when they get just a little scent. When Jack pointed he probably had the covey that Blaze pointed but they ran a little way and he didn’t have the experience to follow them. If Gailen and I hadn’t been riding we might have spent more time in that area and walked the Jack or Tur Bo into those birds.
It was a fun day. Running dogs from a utility vehicle allows the dog to reach out. After they figure out that they don’t need to come back to check on you they really start running. Gailen only drove a little faster than walking speed but when a dog turned to come back to check on us we were right there. We are talking about running dogs on this farm again next week. If we can it will be good for the dogs and their owners.
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