Report from this weekend's hunting.

On Sunday, we went to Addieville.  I was the only shooter.  Argus did a great job - he found 15 out of 16 birds.  I did not have as good as a batting average for the shooting part.  I like the second picture - the serious Argus, compared to the first with his tongue out.

Some highlights - Argus is really getting hang of hunting up the birds, very fun to see him get birdy.  We had a couple of good "hunt dead" commands - where the bird is down, but we can't find it.  The cover was about 6 feet high at some points - we were in field 3.  I need to work on the command with him so that he knows exactly what I want, but he does hunt the area up to find it and delivers back to hand.

This is from Saturday's duck hunt.   Arthur came along.  We had a beautiful sun rise.  We got one duck - it fell about 100 yards away near land.  Argus did not see it and it was near another hunter, so we waiting to get it.  Argus and I headed over, the other hunter thought it landed near the water, so we looked around there but gave up after a couple of minutes - we did not want to disturb the other hunter too much.  On the way out about an hour later, we tried again, but this time I went more on land - where I thought it was in the first place.  Asked Argus to hunt dead - and he found it - a hen mallard.  I would have never found it.

Duck Hunting this morning

Argus coming back from retrieve this morning.  A beautiful drake mallard.  He needed a little encouragement to get out of the boat, but completed the retrieve just fine.

Opening day yesterday - beautiful day, but birds were not decoying.  We did get one mallard.  Argus did not see it, so had to try a blind.  He lost confidence using the ladder, so had trouble getting retrieve.  We hadn't trained this - entering via the ladder.  Need to work on his confidence here.  We got the duck and did a couple retrieves and got him to use the ladder.  Did some more training at home on dry land.  On to the next hunt.

The following pictures from recent hunting:

1.  In Maine, hunting on the Grand Lake Stream - Argus' first wild bird of the year - a Maine wood duck.

2.  Training at Flerra Meadows in Boxborough.  We did alot of blind water retrieves.

3 and 4.  Hunting Partners after a successful hunt at Addieville.  Nathaniel and Argus did great.

Maine Hunting Trip 2013

We just wrapped up a trip hunting in Maine.  Grand Lake Stream - at Weatherby's.  The weather was very warm - 70 - 75 degrees.  Did not see many grouse or woodcock.  Did get some duck hunting in - here's a picture of wood duck that Argus retrieved.  We also got a mallard.  Both great blind retrieves for him.

Pictures below are:
- Argus relaxing in cabin.
- Argus with wood duck - his first wild retrieve of the year.
- Argus relaxing after the hunt.   A very tired puppy.