My new grouse dog

[Dean Romig]

Me too...

See below.

[MarketHunter]

WooHoo!!! I've still gotta ship you that thing.....

DLH

[Tom Flanigan]

Thanks Destry. Those specklebellies will be waiting for us next September.

[Bill Murphy]

I guess I wasn't "raised right". Tom's Stoney was the first setter I hunted over who rode on the rear seat of a late model Mercedes Benz sedan. I remember that my Eva, at that time in history, rode in a crate in the rear of my Toyota 4-Runner. If Tom had not been a Parker guy, I may have been a bit suspicious of his training methods. I am sorry that Tom and I have not continued our time with our dogs. However, we did spend some time hunting semi-wild quail, out of season, where there were supposedly no birds, but there were birds. You can ask Tom for an explanation.

[Tom Flanigan]

The place Bill and I hunted was state land, a portion of which was set up as a dog training, field trial area. Milo was planted in the fields which were surrounded by very thick hedgerows. It was the best quail cover I have ever seen. Few people used it other than the field trials and it was a very large area with great fields and hedgerows abundant. You were allowed to work the dogs and hunt starting September 1st. There were leftover quail there from the training and field trials but there was also natural reproduction that few knew about. When there with Bill, I remember the dogs found a covey of mostly young of the year. They must have been a late hatching because a number of the birds were half grown. It was a rare day when I couldn’t find a couple or three coveys.

I am generally a lone hunter. But the days Bill joined me were special. He is one of the few people I would take into my grouse coverts. If he were up to it, I would drag him to Pawling for a week of hunting grouse in the morning and ducks in the evening. I’ve got a bedroom with his name on it if he ever comes North.