Grouse Hunting the U.P. of Michigan

[mobirdhunter]

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.

[SXS OHIO]

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

[mobirdhunter]

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.

[Ed Norman]

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.

[James Whittington]

Originally Posted by Garry L Gordon

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

Enjoyed your post and, especially, the pictures.

Originally Posted by Garry L Gordon

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.

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.

[Dean Romig]

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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[Opening Day]

Originally Posted by Garry L Gordon

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.

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

[Gary Laudermilch]

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

[mobirdhunter]

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.

[Opening Day]

Originally Posted by Gary Laudermilch

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

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 (number 5 plug) And he told me, you will always have a problem with her and he was right......................