Brett you had much better weather than I did in the U.P. I spend the month of October at my place in Channing and we had 18 consecutive days of measurable precipitation either rain or snow
There were at least four days of snow and I bet the average temperature didn't hit 40 for the entire month. Last year it was in the high 80's low 90's so much better.
You could see Ike improve each day. He started out a little rangy and in a howling snowstorm near Amasa I had the perfect storm of failures. My hearing aid batteries died and so did the E collar. One minute he was right there the next he was gone. I called and called and blew the whistle but with the wind I don't think he could hear me and I definitely couldn't hear his bell. This is big country and there are wolves so at a time like this all sorts of things go through your mind and none are any good. After about two horrible hours he comes running down the trail as if to say "where have you guys been?".
I took him to a preserve for some clean up work on pheasants. A friend has a young Brittany and wanted to get her on birds so he bought some and planted them for her and just walked her into them, no hunt really just schooling. After that we took Ike out to see what he could find. This time I didn't use the bell as I could keep pretty good track of him and he handled and worked beautifully.
I'm looking forward to taking him to Georgia for quail in January.