UK Invasion

[Dean Weber]

Trying to squeeze every day out of this bird season, Oz and I headed out on a mild day where the work schedule allowed some tolerance. Oz is an Irish-bred labrador and the gun is a Scottish MacNaughton.

Since I know we like our guns, the MacNaughton is a round action 12 bore with 28" barrels. These were the first birds with this gun (I have been fortunate to have a number of these events this season), however, I shot the gun poorly and I am not enamored with the swivel safety.

The real story here is the dog work... in a couple ways. One highlight is that Oz has begun to "point" more and more as our seasons have progressed. These have mostly been flash-points for up to several seconds. Yesterday, he went on "point" with head and tail high for the amount of time it took me to walk 40 yards and then wait and then wait some more! I finally told Oz to get 'em and the bird flushed with a clean kill. I was pretty shocked but Oz went on to point multiple more birds (mostly hens) throughout the day. Who knows, he may have been trying to help my poor shooting by letting me get closer!

2nd highlight was trying to hunt a piece of cover I knew the birds would flush wild at the end of the cover. So, (last picture), I sat Oz at the end of a short tree break and told him to stay. I went to the other end (maybe 500 yards) and walked it against the wind. My strategy was to have Oz block for me (fat chance....). To my surprise, he stayed exactly in the spot I put him and as luck would have it I flushed a bird at the end of the break, killing it. I was able to get a picture of Oz standing guard as I was leaving him.

I was a bit surprised on both highlights, but I was happy with both outcomes. And, on top of it, I got to blood a gun. If I had Garry Gordon's wife Elaine along, I may have been able to capture the events more clearly. Enjoy!