Question: I've heard that you use your pointing dogs to flush after the bird's been pointed. I have a German Short-hair I'd like to do this with. Can you give me any advice?
Jack R., Trenton.
Answer: There are instances when hunting thick cover with pointing dogs that require assistance from the dogs to get the bird in the air. I'll pause here for a moment to allow the moaning and hand-wringing from the competition crowd to subside before I continue. But seriously, this is a fact of life for bird hunters who use pointing dogs. Quite often, birds will be found in very thick cover, making the possibility of getting a shot impossible for the person doing the flushing, especially with birds who like to run, namely pheasant and late-season grouse.
Hunting late-season grouse requires a savvy dog who will move with the bird when necessary while maintaining proper distance to avoid flushing the bird before the gunners are set. A rock-solid, never-budge-on-point dog will be accused of false-pointing and will provide very few shooting opportunities. Believe me, I've tried it both ways. This isn't to stay that there aren't problems related to allowing the pointing dog to move off point. Some dogs will never perfect the system.
My dogs point hundreds of wild birds and thousands of pen-reared birds a year, thus putting them at a much higher level of experience than the average dog. The basics remain the same. They must first point the bird and wait for my command. It's imperative that the dog be completely ‘whoa' trained. The dog must obey the command immediately under any circumstances, and for most people, this takes several years of hunting. When hunting pen birds, especially quail and chuckar, pressure from the dog makes for a better flush. Pen birds learned long again that people can't catch them and that there's little to fear from us. When the dog goes on point, the hunter will approach to flush and, more times than not, the bird will run instead of flying. One of the biggest problems we have on the shooting preserve is hunters who've steadied their dogs down to competition standards. There is some speculation that the early setters were crossed with or bred to herding dogs. This is apparent when watching a dog work a group of running birds on a preserve.
Having said this, let me confuse you even more by saying that I don't use my pointing dogs to flush pen birds. I'll allow the dog to help flush wild birds, which are much more skittish than pen birds. Our system as Wing Shooters is to use pointing birds, in our case, English Setters, to find and point the birds. We then use our Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, which are kept at heal, to flush when the gunners are in position. The gunshot is the release for my pointing dogs, making them free to retrieve. I think the best system might be to allow only the retrievers to retrieve birds, but my Setters like to retrieve and they must do so when retrievers aren't present, such as in the wild. Of course, all dogs must honor the retriever and not try to steal the bird once it's in another dog's possession.
You may have seen this done down south on plantation hunts, where the pointing dogs have to work in the heat and they must cover large sections of ground. Quite often, these pointers come from field trail stock that don't retrieve, but the fact remains that a pointer that has to find and retrieve down birds will burn out and tire faster in the heat.
I've trained several breeds of flushers and retrievers for this and I've found that Chesapeakes work the best.
Charlie Linblade
Mighigan Wing Shooters Hunt Club
Michigan Pheasant Hunting
Michigan Bird Dog Training
