Grouse hunting with dogs

[GrousePointer]

Since this has come up in a couple of threads...

How many of you are using pointing dogs to hunt grouse with here?

If you do, what would you say is the average range your dogs are running out to?



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[KFhunter]

I hunt pretty thick stuff, foot hunting a Brittany


normally in phez areas she'll range out a good long ways, but hunting grouse I keep her in close if I'm off the road busting through brush.
If we're going on a road she'll go further up going left to right across the road working the sides.


but now I'm in serious wolf country, and already had a Mt Lion try to make a snack of her so I'm making her range pretty dang close!

[netcoyote]

I hunt grouse with my English Setter. He has pointed up many birds that I would have missed, both on the ground and in trees. He occasionally bumps up birds but they were probably going to bump anyway just from our presence. Setters are notorious for being wide rangers and mine is no exception. If we are in heavy cover, I really need to work to keep him in a reasonable range but he responds well to hand quartering commands..."left", "right". He's been with me for eight seasons and he will still run hard all day and be back for more the next day.

Here he is on a grouse on the ground down at Mt Adams.
[smg id=11620]

[GrousePointer]

KFHunter -That was going to be my follow up question, how many of you are running into mountain lions with your dogs on the west side of the state?

Lions are only starting to come back to Michigan and wolves are mostly a UP problem so you can let a dog stretch it out there with not much fear in a lot of places. Bear hunters run hounds on bear there year round so they run away more often than not from the sound of a bird dog.

But being back out here I can see how I might want to switch up my game.

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[KFhunter]

We've always had a high population of MT Lions, and normally they'll run off too but with them sneaky devils you just never know.  2 summers ago I had one follow us a good half mile stalking us from a rocky ridge line just above us then auctually run on ahead of us and set up an ambush.  We walked 10 feet in front of this cat and had no clue it was there until it poped up out the brush looking for a target to pounce on.

kicker was I was not armed at the time as it was a berry picking trip and we had ATV's but due to deadfall trees we had to hoof it up to the berry patch....this will never happen again (being unarmed) the woods are just not the same now as they were 5 years ago.

[GrousePointer]

KFHunter - it has been about five years since I last lived here. What has changed?

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[KFhunter]

Wolves

Lots more now, like a snowball rolling down a hill. 

Wolves make other predators, like felines, hungry. 
They move the Elk around and chase them out of normal areas where felines would normally take them.  Same for deer they hold tight down near the fields and houses and not up into feline / grouse territory.

Setting up my cams this spring/summer I noticed this in stark detail, there was a very finite barrier the deer dissappeared once I got up away from civilization.
A mile up in the woods the deer did not show on camera even over bait - this is very different than 5 or more years ago they'd have been all over it.  I got Elk pictures and virtually no deer.  If I went a 1/4 mile closer to civilization the deer would re-appear then if I got closer I got almost all deer pics.




Did you read the thread about the mushroom surveyor getting his dog chewed on?   

[GrousePointer]

Yeah I saw that story.

They've had some incidents out in the Midwest too. Typically someone's dog (often hound guys running bear or guys rabbit hunting with beagles) going into the wrong place at the wrong time during denning season.

The problem, at least in MI, is the wolves have started to outstrip their food sources in some places and started wandering into towns.

They have a DNR run hunt now to manage the population since it long ago out grew the target population number.

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