WoodieBoater

I'm sorry to hear about the dog. It's hard to hold them back when all they want to do is hunt. Mine broke his foot right in the middle of October. Was definitely hard to sideline him. I more mean spending significant amounts of time in grouse cover. With a dog or without. I don't hunt fast and I don't over-exert my dog. But I do spend time almost every day before the opener of rifle in grouse cover trying to better understand what feed they're focusing on at that time. I did a lot more scouting this fall with the dog being on bed rest and it helped me pinpoint what type of cover the birds were in, which translated to more flushes. Around these parts you can't just trip out the back door and run into birds anymore, even on a good numbers year. it takes a lot of time and effort. That's what I mean when I say grind it out. A dog is a great tool but they can't do all the work.

I've actually had quite a few bird contacts in the southern tier. "quite a few" meaning maybe 3 on average/outing with a hard working dog. If you want to get into any real numbers you have to travel. Northern Maine/Vermont/New Hampshire is a decent area still. We averaged 22 grouse contacts per day on our Maine trip this year. Otherwise you just gotta grind it out with hours and miles in the best cover you can find

VID_75730110_142314_472.mp4

Sorry Folks, I clearly haven't been paying close enough attention to this post. We go way into northern Maine, about a half hour south of Fort Kent and cover a lot of ground up there. My best piece of advice is avoid the North Maine Woods, yes there's birds in there but its hard to hunt them unless you're gravel road pounding them. Target old farms and alder thickets if you go. We kill a lot of birds but we hunt harder than hell too. As for Dutch's little brother, id like to see them spend more time in the woods but I get it. Life is busy. As for Dutch, he's been having an amazing season. He's really rounding out to be a phenomenal dog. Every time I go out with him he does something that amazes me and makes me want to stop and take pictures. Weather its cutting off a running rooster, pinning a grouse, or retrieving a crippled duck a couple hundred yards through some thick nasty crap. Its pretty amazing to be able to take the same dog out to do everything and be successful, state land ditch roosters, grouse, woodcock, ducks, geese, you name it.... Ill post a few pics from this season so far. more updates to come

well the new pup put 6 pounds on in two weeks. The tables have turned. Dutch is no longer the antagonizing puppy

the other thing you can try is getting them tired out before you get in the boat. hard to do I know, but if you can get them a nice long run or some water retrieves to burn off energy they'll be a lot more well behaved in the boat (and by that I mean hopefully passed out in the cuddy). A tired dog is a good dog. Let us know how it goes

I say take the dog for a half day trip somewhere BEFORE you have a long boating vacation planned. After a 4 hour trip you'll know weather dog can handle it and weather they cant. And you'll know if you want to be in the boat with the dog that long or not. Some dogs can handle boat time just fine and some cant. It all depends on your dog. My main concerns if you do take the dog are the heat and amount of sun they would get exposed to in a boat. Its not a great environment for them to be in if you don't have shade for them to be in, especially flat days mid-summer when the water is like a frying pan. Things to consider. FYI getting a dogs back wet (aka swimming) and then letting them sit in the sun isn't a means of cooling them off either, eventually the water just warms up and they're right back to being too hot. I take mine with me on short trips, but if I'm going to be on the water all day I leave him home.

As of July of last year Marshoy is no longer breeding. I'm not sure why, but the last time I had talked to them I remember them mentioning that they were planning on getting out of it. I know of a couple of breeders that have pups on the ground now. If you're interested shoot me a PM and I can give you their info.

so we went for round two over the weekend and picked up another puppy. Full brother to Dutch. Great looking pup and another bruiser. 12 pounds just under 8 weeks Will keep everybody posted here as he develops.

The season hasn't kicked the bucket yet. Plenty of birds around.

quick hunt this morning. in some nasty weather.

yeah it does take a lot of time for a full coat to come in on them. I've heard up to 3 years. So Dutch got an infection this summer and had to have a drain put in. The Vet shaved the spot and I'm thinking sh*t its going to take a year to grow that hair back. well it was slow for sure but I believe its fully grown in now. Id say it took a good 6 months

I actually never trimmed his hair. I never even brush him hardly (except to remove burrs). He hunts through thick cover so hard (lets be honest he's a bit clumsy sometimes) that he actually rubs it all off and it doesn't grow back fast enough to grow into long traditional furnishings. Below ill post a picture of when he was about 6 months old and had never really busted brush vs. a couple pictures after a week of hunting hard in Maine. You'll see what I mean. He's never been a super hairy griff anyway. His furnishings and coat are on the short coarse side. The female he's out of looks exactly the same so I'm wondering if its somewhat genetic And I feel terrible when he gets so raw. I do everything I can to try and prevent it, Vaseline on his brows, trying to slow him down in cover, but he just gets beat up after a week straight of hunting. Its not like its even all day every day. its just so many days of hunting in a row in thick cover I think that tears him up

Good lookin puppies

Well it's officially official. Were heading out to Wisconsin at the end of March to get a pup for my sister and her boyfriend. This one will be out of the same parents Dutch is out of. It'll be interesting to see how a pup out of the same breeding progresses. Ill keep everybody here posted. Other than that the end of grouse season has been awful slow. Gotten out to do some planted birds here and there but that's about the extent of our luck

I agree, I love seeing how much success there's been in the field this season. I especially like seeing posts of youngsters getting into hunting and fishing. I'm lucky enough to spend half of my time out here and half of my time at the farm in the southern tier. I get spread kind of thin but I get a lot of opportunity for different kinds of hunting. Like you said its hard to hunt late season waterfowl out there, but the grouse are nonexistent out here. Gotta capitalize on what's available. Everyone likes to complain about NY (myself included, and for good reason) but you have to admit that we have a lot of different hunting and fishing opportunities and resources. I always try to remind myself when I complain about stale birds or low grouse numbers that at least I have the opportunity to hunt both in the same state (often on the same day). Gotta love it