Grouse Hunting the U.P. of Michigan
 

My wife and I had a great hunt last week in the U.P. of Michigan.Parker VH 16 on an O frame still getting it done after 113 years.
Glenn

James,
Thank you for posting these great pictures, my wife is showing more and more interest in hunting. She walks often with me when I hunt, my buddy has offered to loan a 20 gauge semi auto. I was going to put a single shell in it and see how she handles tin cans, then clay pigeons. I will show her these pictures, thanks again for posting them.

Wonderful! My wife and I love hunting together too

What part of the U.P were you hunting. Rich Anderson (COB) just returned from the Western end of the UP he's been up there for over a month! He left yesterday and said there was two inches of snow.

We were hunting around Crystal Falls,snowed on us the first couple of days off and on with temps holding in the 30's but no accumulation.Grouse flushes were up from last year for us,but good shots were hard to get alot of the birds were holding around spruce,but we still managed to scratch some down every day.We flushed grouse in every cover we hunted except one this week.This was the first grouse hunt for my wife,and was an eye opening experience for her,she thought it would be more open like quail hunting.We saw deer and turkey daily and a couple of eagles.The leaves were beautiful when we arrived but many came down as the week progressed to make for better shooting.I got some good dog work out of my old dogs,and put a new 9 month old pup down a couple of times and got her some grouse contacts,I would of hunted her more but I lost her one time and had to run her down more than a mile away,thank goodness for the Garmin Alpha tracking collar.We did not find many Woodcock,this was my only disappointment as I was hoping to work the young dog on them.The wife has told everybody about her "adventure" and is already talking about the trip next year,all is good.

It sounds like a really wonderful experience for you both. A new tradition for you for sure.





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Glad you found your pup! Think about before we had those tracking collars.

Enjoyed your post and, especially, the pictures.

Yes the tracking collar is nice,without it I would have been riding the roads looking,and hard to tell how long it would take to find her,maybe never.My name is on the collar and people are good to call,but I would not want her to have to stay out for the night with the wolves in the area.She is a good pup and will learn,it was windy that day and I think she got confused and was just running.Here is a picture of her,the week before we left.

Too bad you didn't post before you left, as you were right around the corner from Rich Anderson he is in Channing, and he's been up there for over a month, he also hunts GSP's

Last year I lost Ike when he was only a year old in Amasa for several hours. It was the perfect storm of failures, the battery in the Dogtra E collar went dead, my hearing aid batteries went dead and the wind was blowing and it was snowing sideways. Ike is predominately white in coloring. To say it was a gut wrenching experience is an understatement. My mother in law was dying at the time and I pictured the call from home "Moms fading fast/mom died etc and you need to come home". My reply would have been "I can't I lost Ike". This year I had a GPS collar.
Driving a two track on a rainy day I found and English setter walking looking tired and disheveled. I stopped and she came right up to me like I was her long lost friend. She had a collar and a phone number but when I called the number was disconnected. I stopped at the nearby resort of Silver Lake and asked if anyone had reported a lost dog. I got a no then a yeas. I was given two numbers. The owner had lost her the night before and by the time he reached me he ad already headed to southern Michigan where he lived!!! He was 5 hours south of me. Someone did come later in the day for the dog.

I don't know of a worse, more helpless, feeling, than when you lose your dog.

So glad to read that these two incidents turned out well. Rich, I remember your situation from a prior post and it still haunts me.

The first year I hunted the U.P. Felch area it was in a big block of woods when Ruby went on point down the hill side off the tram trail in the thick woods. I started down to her and she moved away and pointed again...this went on for a bit on point off point and we have moved deeper into the woods. I have a GPS collar on her! I got real upset as grouse would have flushed by now and my dog would have returned. But the dog stay out there ahead of me good 50 yards or so in the heavy woods. I was sure a wolf or lion had her and was dragging her off not letting me get close to them. I started to move faster and the dog moved further away. I called for her but no Ruby. I got way in ware some large boulders the size of small house filled the woods...bear country!! I finally caught up with her she did not seem as anything was wrong? I was upset and headed us out. In a short time I saw her flash point and one of the dang snow shoe hares, she took off following, then pointing just like before. I found her again and gave the stern leave it command and we left the area. Before I got my bearings and back on the trail dog found a dang porky.....got my gear off and found my tools and a leash and started to remove quills the rain started. that's just lovely!!!! SXS Ohio

I try hard to not hate any living creature...but I fall short when it comes to porcupines. We had another run in on our recent trip. Not a bad one, but it seems clear that Alder has not learned her lesson. The quills you don't get out can be very bad as they travel around inside the dog. I keep my hemostats around my neck on a chain at all times in the North Woods.

Kenny, I'm glad you were able to take care of Miss Ruby in all of those cases.

Kenny,
And here I thought everybody was dropping their porcupines within a 10 mile radius of where I live and hunt:) My brittany cash found 2 porcupines in one day!!! Another day he pointed a skunk, I grabbed his collar and flushed his eye out, then tried to throw the rest of the bottle on his leg where he was sprayed. I took my eye off him for a minute, and got another bottle of water out to get as much spray off him as I could, and I started looking for him and he was 30 yards away on point. We had planted chukars out in a large field, and made a big swing down in a swamp before coming back to the chukar field. He found the skunk on the edge of the swamp.

About five years ago the big German Shorthair in the pictures got a porky while I was in the UP with some friends,we had three dogs get porkys that year and we were able to pull them on the other two,but not this big rascal,we could not hold him and he had them bad all in the roof of his mouth and tongue under his tongue they were every where.I called a Vet in Iron Mountain and he waited on us to get to his office gave me a quote and I agreed on the price,he sent me and my friends to eat supper while he pulled the quills.We returned to get my dog after we had eat and the dog was ready to go but very wobbly where he had drugged him to pull the quills.I went to pay the bill and it was half what he told me it would be,I will never forget this as I was 1000 miles from home and had already agreed to pay double what he finally charged me,a very honest man who was also a bird hunter.I asked him if he thought this would break the dog from porkys and he said it was hard to tell,he had a setter that he had pulled quills on five times already.

We ran into a big porcupine near the top of the "Scrubapple Hillside" at the mouth of his den/cave on Saturday where porcupines have called home for the 60 years I have been trudging that hillside. It is a natural cave mouth at the bottom of a 50 yard diameter, 25 foot deep cone formed by the earth eroding into the cave since the glacier receded.

My partner twenty-five yards to my right called "Porcupine!"... I called back "Shoot it and stuff it into the cave."

But all he did was to pick up a rock the size of a cantaloupe and give the thing a bad nosebleed whereupon it quickly retreated into the cave.

I wouldn't have been so kind but then, I'm from a different generation.




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Garry, could not have said it better, god I hate "porkies" :cuss:

I trash break my dogs on porkys and I don't get soft about it. I have never pulled a quill.

But you need a porcupine in a planned setting to do a good job of "trash breaking" -- hard to do in Missouri. I do zap the dogs when and if I can see the porkie before they do...but that is IF I see the porkie before they do.

I had a setter, Katie that could not be broken, with a trainer she got into a porky he killed it and pulled out the quills from her, put the porky up in a limb of a tree and came back with Katie two hours and she jumped in again and he lite her up didn't even stop her:eek: (number 5 plug) And he told me, you will always have a problem with her and he was right......................:banghead:

Eric, I had a male Gordon that was first "introduced" to porcupines on the plains of Montana. He could not be deterred from attacking them, even after having to be sedated twice at the vet because the quills were so deep in his mouth. I believe that your case with Katie is not all that uncommon, and that when dogs develops what can only be called a hatred for porkies, it never leaves them

And skunks...:crying: don't even ask about that ! To her the only good porky or skunk was a dead one! It was a mission for her.

Gary,
Could you explain trash break please. I am wondering if thats what the brittany breeder was talking about when trying to help me get my dog broke from porcupines.

When dogs pursue game/animals other than the intended, the unwanted game is often referred to as "trash". Here in the South coonhounds were apt to tree an occasional opossum or a foxhound might chase a rabbit rather than a fox. Owners tried hard but often failed to break their dogs from perusing the "trash". Today it is done with shock collars, when I was a kid it was done with a large stick. And I am not supporting either, just stating the facts as I know them.

I live in country where dogs will often encounter critters that I do not want them to be involved with, be it porkys, skunks, bear, deer, bobcats, coyotes etc. It is not at all uncommon to run into this stuff right outside my front door. If I did not teach the dogs to ignore this stuff I would have a constant circus on my hands as my dogs are never on a leash. I use the same technique to teach them to stay off the road. It is all for their own benefit. If done correctly and at a young enough age it should not take more than one training session for each. The objective is to have the dog think the offending critter was the source of their discomfort not you. I never associate any command with the correction. I usually begin trash breaking as soon as a pup is collar trained, about 5-6 months old. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Gary,
Thanks, when we got our brittany cash, he was 2.5 years old. The old owner would often let him out of the house and run free. It has not been easy because he has so many bad habit engrained in him. The brittany breeder has been telling me what to do with the shock collar when he encounters and unwanted animal. The last time (a couple of weeks ago) he went on point under a large pine tree, he didn't look quite as intense, something seemed off, I hurried over, as soon as I saw the porcupine, I put my finger on the shock button, and waited, usually he pounces as soon as the porcupine moves. The porcupine started walking off, cash moved forward a half step, looked at me, I just shook my head no, and waited. After about 20 seconds he would not move forward any further, so I called him off. My breeder said he would of shocked him, I told my breeder he wouldn't go forward so I didn't shock him. He said maybe he has learned after all. The breeder says he is a "porcupine hunter" jokingly. He has found 5 in the 2.5 years we have had him. Hopefully he has learned his lesson.

Daisy never met a porky she couldn't whip. We stopped hunting a good place for woodcock because it was also a good place for porky's. Ike got into one last year pretty bad. One quill was a real pain. His face swelled up and he was on antibiotics for months. The vet tried to take it out surgically twice. This year he got into one again but it mostly on his leg. I always carry a pair of hemostats in my vest.

While going to a cover to hunt I came on a big porky in the road. I stopped the truck got the Kimber 45 from the center counsel and gave the offending rodent two hollow points. He will never injure a bird dog.

Yep that one kill of Daisy's, cost Magic the season (over 200 quills):crying: and I was with Rich when he dispatched that porky this fall I didn't see the sucker but he did and the truck came to a immediate halt, grab the 45 two shots and throw it into a tree, and nothing was said as we drove down the road after I hate those suckers!

Unless or until another bird dog decides to roll in the putrefied carcass which still has all those nasty quills.
I don't disagree with dispatching the critter but I think we should be careful how we dispose of the carcass.





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I passed on dispatching the last porcupine that my brittany pointed recently under a pine tree. I am afraid if I shoot the porcupine with my dog anywhere nearby, he may associate the gunfire (which he likes) with a new sport shooting porcupines. I keep a shovel in my pickup truck, it was way to far to walk back, leave the dog in the truck, and try to find the porcupine again. Last year cash ran up to a tree with porcupine droppings, I zapped him as soon as he smelled the droppings. We were pretty close to the truck, so I took him back, went back and dispatched the porcupine, then I put him up in the crotch of a tree just out of reach of the dog. I bought the dog back to the area, when he jumped towards the porcupine, I shocked him. We finished our hunt, then I went back and buried the porcupine. My brittany breeder thinks that anytime you shoot anything that the dog might get the wrong idea if its a porcupine. When I shoot and miss a grouse or woodcock (which I do often) he seems to pick up the pace immediately. If I can't bury the porcupine, I won't shoot it.

I should also clarify that one of the 5 or so porcupines that my brittany found, one was dead. He was dead for quite a while, but when he got downwind, he made a beeline for the carcass. I knew something wasn't right, (he quit quartering) when I got close I could smell the carcass too. Cash went up quickly, I was to far back to see what it was, (it was in a clearing with mature trees around the clearing) but I could see cash start to put his head down, I yelled no, hit my shock button, but he already had gotten a few quills in his muzzle and a few in one front leg. I was able to pull all those out. I don't know if he would of even smelled that dead porcupine if it had not been dead so long. I asked my brittany breeder, and he said a lot of dogs will make a beeline for dead porkies easier than live ones because the smell is stronger. Thats when I decided to bury anything I shot without my dog around to watch. Hope this makes better sense. Thanks, Ed