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| Generalist and TargetAmongst self guided upland bird hunters with a range of experience of hunting pheasant, chukar, woods or plains grouse and quail behind dogs, the long time dedicated bobwhite quail hunter is the most strongly opinionated on the subject of dog power.
The distinction is the difference between generalists and target habitat dog work. The focus of this article is on the definition of dog power from these quail hunters and how bobwhite quail hunting dog power is distinctive from other types of upland bird hunting. When asking any group of upland bird dog hunters inclusive of pointer, flushing and retrieving dog hunters to define dog power they will come up with a variety of aspects without great uniformity. Amongst bobwhite quail hunters concurrent with pointing dog hunters that definition has far more agreement and is universally first answered with the statement that dog power is the ability to find birds. It is not until digging further into what bird finding means to an individual hunter does the dog power definition become refined. This refined definition separates dog bird finding capability of that of the generalist dog that covers all habitat equally. The quail dog hunter requires specialist behaviors. Illustrative of this distinction is shown between the plains or woods grouse hunters and that of bobwhite quail hunter. A dog that hunts grouse will run circles around the hunter covering as much ground as possible as the grouse can be present in any portion of the visible cover due to that cover being commonly or generally distributed. Specific examples include the sharp-tailed and ruff grouse. The sage bench that holds a sharp-tailed grouse will look uniform in its cover to the hunter and any spot holding that covey will most often appear no different than the area 200, 400 or 500 yards in any direction around that covey. Ruff grouse woods while having hot spots along edges of clear cuts or tree species of aspen, hemlock with mature hardwoods or logging roads may take on the look of defined cover. However, the grouse themselves sparsely occupy such spots and the spot where found appears no different than the previously hunted edges of tree cover. In both cases of ruff and sharp-tailed grouse cover the bird dog runs circles until crossing the scent cone, should work close due to thick cover and shorter to hold for point birds. The comparison and distinction between the grouse examples and bobwhite quail hunting are dissimilar beyond what may appear similar. Bobwhite quail do occupy edge habitat and the immediate parallel zone along that edge to both sides meaning the wood and field side. Possibly similar to that of the ruff grouse that occupies the narrow edge zone along a logging road. The distinction is that a grouse dog will work both edges of that logging road as well as deeper into the wooded cover as it is still essentially running circles with the hunter walking the linear road. And, this is where the bobwhite quail hunter makes the definitional distinction on dog power.
Obvious quail edge cover to suit the camera. Quail hunts are not always this easy. |
