Need One More for Markover Hunt
 

Ed Vena and I have booked a pheasant hunt at Markover in Danielson, Ct this Saturday morning. We have room for a third hunter to join us. Anyone interested please pm me or call my cell; 508-322-0579. We're hunting over my setter, Sophie, who is steady on birds (she located and pointed a dozen quail this morning) and naturally retrieves. But if you have your own bird dog, by all means bring him/her.

If I wasn’t going to Addieville this Saturday I’d join you.

Thanks Tom. We'll be planning other hunts at Markover and a few trips to Addieville as well this season. I have to say that I do prefer the covert at Markover vs Addieville, as its more like upland coverts than the fields of broom straw at Addieville. But the gents that I hunt with like both places so we tend to mix it up during the course of the season.

Two mornings ago I took my 17 month old setter to the quail fields at Myles Standish State Park here in Plymouth. Sophie located and pointed somewhere between 10 and 12 quail. I got my limit of four birds but more importantly I could see that after only two outings on quail (Sophie's only hunted pheasants up till now) she quickly learned where to look for them and how to work the birds. She was steady to flush on all the birds. Wish I could say the same! LOL. Now, I'm just trying to decide if I should invest the time and effort into making her steady to wing on birds or just leave her alone at this stage of her development. No plans to field trial her. She's strictly for upland bird hunting. I know there are two schools of thought on whether or not to make a pointing dog steady to wing. My dad, who was heavy into field trials (Setter Club of New England) made his English setters steady to wing. But I think for hunting I think it's less important. I'd be interested any opinions.

I think for field trials a dog has to be steady to wind and shot, but when I am hunting that's one point that I don't push as long as you can call the dog off after the shot (ie miss which I do a lot of in the grouse woods). Just my thoughts