Wonderful story and a mighty nice pic...esp that there double...a Stevens? I just love doubles.
The pheasant population is only in the mtns here, so my pointer got slighted on that..esp when she hunted em in Michigan and other places. Now it's back to the quail fer her and even those are rare. Bless her heart tho...cause she finds ways to bide her time. She points dove, woodcock and the occasional rail. Sometimes I'll take her squirrel huntin and she'll run them up the tree fer me and barks till I git there. She is a very classy dog with a wonderful temperment. Caint git her to walk on the right tho..the dern dog always gits to the left of me and I gotta tell her to "go right"
She came out of field trial dogs and I didnt want want her to run 3000 yards out thinkin I was ridin on a dern horse er somethin. Round here, the woods are thick, large fields are few...so she learned suprisingly fast that I aint want her to run to the next county. When we went to Michigan huntin the pheasant..that's all there was...so she had to do some serious thinkin. Was funny as all git out watchin her figure things out. Sides..she was still thinkin she was posed to hunt quail..she aint never heared tell of such a thing as a pheasant. So she would run as fast as she could down the middle of the open field (if it was cut..if it was thick she'd work it) and she'd hit the fencerows and work the bird back up to me. When she hit her first pheasant she ignored it as a trash bird. Then she heard the boom boom and then it clicked and she started pointin em. She learned to keep em grounded and was a pheasant machine after that.
I aint a huge bird hunter..so I feel almost ashamed that the dog could go soooo much further and it seems that I only hold her back. But I know this..she is truly loved by the whole family..and she sure aint git shorted in that department.
Dave, I know the feelin bout old dogs and huntin em..I got 2 now white-face beagles..bless their hearts..that despite the fact that their bodies wont let em..their spirit sure makes em. They will hunt this year regardless..Scooter at 13 and Chief at 9. Bless all the old huntin dogs in the world...imagine the stories they could tell iffin they could talk.