Swiss Army Dogs

 The past decade or so, I have left the pheasant belt of eastern Montana immediately after the opening weekend each year. The hunt is mostly a tradition amongst friends with good dog work on young birds, often ending our hunts by mid-morning each day. After the two or three days of hunting wild roosters in CRP and brushy draws, I repack my gear and head to Minnesota for ruffed grouse and woodcock. The mid-October window is a good balance that is late enough in the season to offer some leaves on the ground, but not far enough into fall to miss all of the resident woodcock.

Maggie and Katy. All they knew were grouse and woodcock and it showed.

Growing up in the north woods, our dogs were specialists. It wasn’t an attempt at elitism, but strictly a pragmatic decision.  We never considered traveling, leaving birds to find birds. Blaze, Maggie, Katy, and Lucy hunted ruffs and timberdoodles exclusively, with maybe one or two outings for sharptail that were just outside of the big woods.  When you combine that narrow focus with great hunting in your backyard, a young setter learned the game very quickly.  Woodcock were a great training tool, the wary grouse a slightly more advanced course. I took our good hunting and stellar dog work for granted.

Now, with just a handful of days in the MN woods each year, I won’t pretend that my current pair of bird dogs have that duo mastered.  Sure, they do well-enough, but I can notice they handle ruffs better on day three or four, then on day one. I am not sure they even remember the smell of woodcock until they bump one and grouse, well, they might get a bit too close for comfort when the tailgate first drops. Switching from running roosters to wobbly woodcock in 24 hours, is a significant change. 

Huns. Great dog work + sporty shooting. 

A feathered stew of chukars, blue grouse, sharptail and Huns, an occasional sage grouse and a few valley quail each year, only adds to the diversity that my dogs see. September sharptail usually play fair, but the weather can be hot and dry.  Are mountain blue grouse an adequate fill-in for ruffs?  Do Hun coveys act and smell like a bunch of chukars?   Does the variety of birds make them mediocre at each species or are bird contacts all part of the bigger picture?  I am not sure what the answer is, but I know in my six-month sojourn chasing birds each year, it is sure fun to see a variety of country, with a lot of unique birds alongside my “good-enough” dogs. 

Chukar country.  Birds that run like pheasants, flush like Huns.