A good hunting mid-summer weekend

This weekend was a good one to stay psyched up for the fall.

Saturday morning I drove up to Sandstone MN to drop off ,Tina, one of my setters, at NorthWoods Bird Dogs for pre-season conditioning and some training tuning up. Jerry had a client coming in to look at the training progress of the two Brits that he had there. One was a young dog and the other was about 10 years old. I got to hang with them and play bird boy while they watched the improvements the two dogs had made. I also got to watch him work a pointer, gsp, viszla, and a french brittany. I had a great time seeing the different stages the dogs were at and picked up a few pointers.

Sunday I went to Metro Gun Club and shot 2 rounds of trap. I'm averaging about 3-4 birds more per round than I was last summer. If I keep at this rate of improvement in a few years I'll be halfway decent. During the first round there was just two of us shooting and the second round there were three of us. It was kind of nice to get in and out pretty quickly. I think it took me mor etime to drive there and back than it did to get in my shooting. After shooting I took the other two dogs out for a walk. There was a bit of a difference in energy level of the pups on Saturday and my 11 and 13 year olds.... I'm pretty sure they will be excited when I first start to load up the hunting gear though.

Game Fair starts in about two weeks so if you are out there please stop by the Minnesota Outdoor Sports booth and say Hi.

Dog Training

The way I think of the need to get my dogs trained for the season might be a bit different than most people. I think the less you hunt the more important it is to have your dog fully trained and ready to go right at the start of the season. I usually can hunt 20-30 days per season ( still less than I want but until I win the powerball.... ) and if it takes me 4 or 5 hunts to iron out any issues that have cropped up over the summer I still have 15+ hunts left after I’ve gotten the issues straightened out. During the years when I could only get out 10-12 times that means that about half of my hunts were spent working with a dog who wasn’t fully ready to be in the field. Hunting season is too short to spend it with a dog that hunts out of range or breaks their points.

Even though my dogs have been to a trainer almost every year I still like to have them get a preseason tune up. Even if it is just to get them on birds on a consistent basis. I’ve noticed that they are much more ready to go the first day I put them in the woods.

I’ve worked with two different trainers over the past 10 years and have been really happy with them. ( and no I don’t get a kickback or free training from them...)

Jerry Kolter @ Northwoodsbirddogs.com 320-245-6988
Gregg Arndt Kennels 320-983-2021

Spring Training

Went to the gun range for the 2nd time this spring.
Shot a couple of rounds of trap. I was a bit disappointed with my shooting this trip. I actually shot about the same as my average shooting but the previous trip had been better than usual so I was hoping that I had made an actual improvement that was going to stick.

Oh well, just have to keep trying and see if I can still make the jump.

Consider A Recue Dog

If you would like to help sporting breeds please consider adopting a dog.

http://www.onpointrescue.com/  has Pointers and German Shorthair Pointers available for adoption.

New Training Collar From LCS

Bird Dog Trainer 2

Now In Stock!!

New for 2009 – the Lion County Supply Bird Dog Trainer II has been completely re-engineered and improved ease-of-use. The really big new is you can now program a second collar to your transmitter, and train two dogs simultaneously. The choice between dog 1 and dog 2 is easily accomplished with a switch conveniently located on the side of the transmitter. The sensitivity on the beeper has been redesigned and provide immediate audio feedback on your dogs location, and whether he is moving or on point.

The most exciting development with this new unit is it is the primary component to a complete bird dog training system. The transmitter to the Bird Dog Trainer II also operates the electronics supplied with our Universal Bird Launcher and the electronics supplied with our new LCS Backing Dog! Think of it – one transmitter to train your dog, activate a bird launcher, and deploy a backing dog – in one training session!

There is no other remote training collars available today that provides you the capability to customize a training system to your individual needs, and a such a great price

Cabela's Gun Buying Event

Cabela's Gun Library® is interested in acquiring functional firearms of nearly every description - old and new, plain and fancy - field models and collector grades. Whether it is a single piece or an entire collection, we are always looking to purchase quality inventory. Cabela's will travel to your location for larger quantities of arms.

* Cash will be paid up to $2,000 per gun collection. If the purchase is over $2,000, the form of payment will be by check or Cabela's Gift Card the same day. All firearms must be legally owned and pass a Serial Number cross-check. Valid Government issued ID is required. No modern muzzleloaders, black powder or airguns.

2008 Hunting Season Wrap Up

2008 Hunting Season Wrap Up

It was an interesting season. Started out hot and then switched to pretty cold over the course of a week. Not many nice 45 degree days where you didn’t have to worry about the dogs getting hot or me getting cold....

We got the most Pheasants we’ve ever gotten for a single season. Just a couple of Ruffed Grouse though.

The dogs did pretty well. Marge, English Setter, was just over 12 years old at the start of the season and held up well. She wants to hunt like she is in her prime so I have to hold her back a bit these days. Fergie, Pointer. was 10 1/2 years old and is mostly blind. She still loves to hunt and would work hard. She didn’t get as many chances at birds since I usually ran the two English Setters first and sometimes we would fill out before she would get to hunt. We would fake hunt most of the time. She did get some hen points but it was on the last hunt of the season that she got a rock solid rooster hunt so that was a blast. Tina, English Setter, turned six shortly before the season. We added her to the team two weeks before our first hunt of the season. She did really well on the grouse the one weekend that we hunted them. It was her first time on pheasants and it was a little bit of an adjustment but she came along fast and was locking them solid by the end of the season.

We hunted a fair number of different farms this fall but did have a few favorites that we hit a bit more often. The new ones were also some of the farthest ones away. One was by Springfield MN and one was by Montevideo MN. Only hunted in Minnesota this year. I used to usually hunt in three different states and hope to expand out a bit more again next year.

The big new piece of gear that I got was a Garmin Astro dog tracking unit. It worked really well and I used it to find dogs that had wandered a bit farther than usual. I think it gave me a bit more confidence to let the dogs stretch out their range a little bit farther. If I was running two dogs I used two of the tracking collars and it made it easier to follow one dog that might be working scent without having to worry about where the other dogs was at any one moment. If they were out of sound range with the remote locate on their beeper collar I would just pull out the receiver unit and it would point me in the right direction. It was a good purchase.

All in all it was a good season and the dogs had a good time and I had a blast hunting with them, which are the two most important parts of it anyway.