Dog Power - One Specific Type, page 2

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Quail Dogs

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Upland Birds

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Bobwhite Quail

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Another Game

Linear Edges

Bobwhite quail hunters define the best quail finding dog as one that runs linear edges rather than circles. This is right in the face of all those bird dog training books that promote conditioning the dog to quarter.

Upland bird hunting or bird dog training.

Bobwhite quail hunters report that a quartering dog is most suited for the pheasant or plains bird where the hunter acts as a director to the dog’s movement steering him to the areas of better cover the hunter can see but blocked from the dog’s vision. Examples are tall grass hunting or grass taller than the dog can see over.

The discussion continued that the edge line occupied by quail is highly defined and a stones throw narrow limit along the edge itself that a circling or quartering upland bird dog will uselessly expend energy running out of by running too deep into the woods or too far into the field.

Upland Bird Hunter Feedback

"One cold hunt and our best single day as shown by the quail on the dog box by noon....

....Driving out after work I put the dog down on the first field around 11AM. By that time I decided it must be challenging being a weatherman. The forecasted 15 MPH winds and mid 30's temperatures would have felt like summertime as the wind was everything of 25 MPH and the cold low enough to force on all my cold weather clothing and freeze the dog water bottles in my vest bag. Shelter from the tree lines was welcomed and the walk across the open fields enough to make my eyes water from the cold and wind. We found three quail, not quite a covey. We worked them for point and let them all fly.

The next field we (my dog and I in support) found a large covey harvested one and found difficult through the trees shooting for the remainder chasing the covey down the wooded creek line until it diffused into nothing. Between the driving wind, light snow and the last hour of light we quit for the day.

The covey on this farm will do well through the winter as the combine left plenty of beans. I enclosed a picture just for the interest of the high volume of beans left behind.

The next day the winds were slightly abated and cold in the 20's. We had time enough to hunt three large fields finding two sizable coveys in excess of 20 birds that provided much singles action. So much so I took time to capture some point pictures.

Running along the edge he slammed into a point on what turned out to be 6 quail which was the third sizable group from the original covey flush we found. The covey was large flushing well within the property spreading over a good piece of the acreage allowing for much singles and regrouping sub-coveys. It was the first stop of the day and when we pulled off the birds and made it back to the truck it was 1130AM. Probably the longest I have ever hunted a single covey. This hunt/field will be memorable as every time we looped back around we found singles with the pup getting in enough action that would equal two of the previous coveys encountered.

An open ground singles point immediately after the covey flush. After a good many attempts this is currently my best point picture of this pup (9 months). Not stylish and with good standoff.

Our third day I linked up with another member and I worked my dog on backing. A welcomed effort on my side to get a chance to build up reliability in my pup to back another dog. It was the best day as the wind was nothing at all and even though cold in the low 30's, it felt warm compared to the previous two days. Plenty of good habitat, more acreage than we could walk and the quail were there in very huntable numbers -- we just had bad luck. The coveys seem to know where the property lines were and at best we would get the covey flush and maybe a single or two points before they were onto the neighbor's property. This was pup's best day for finding quail we knocked down 2 that buried in the grass and we could not find, but he found them ahead of the older dog.

Overall, a great trip and well worth the fast drive out and back to make it in time for the obligatory Christmas family activities that come around this time of year.

Thanks, Jason

For the rest of us Jason is a one dog at a time self guided upland bird hunter that travels to grouse, both plains and woods, pheasant and multi species quail hunt. He also seems to have as much fun with camera as with gun to all of our benefit.

Any dog that wants to hunt will find birds. The difference is the speed at which birds are found and how many in a given time. A dog that does quarter will find quail; he simply will not find the coveys as fast or as many compared to an edge running dog, especially a downwind edge running dog.

Bobwhite Quail are the discussion point for this upland bird dog article. Bobwhite Quail points here do not apply to other quail sub-species.

Then there is something mystical about the best covey finding bobwhite quail dogs in that they, undetectable to the upland hunter, pick spots to dive into the cover and find the coveys. Such dogs learn that running crop stubble or larger wooded areas do not produce birds and that edge becomes the focus. The mystical part is that some of the edge has that special combination of influences the dog detects and spends extra time at typically finding a covey. However, not all these periods of extra habitat work by the dogs yield a covey. But they are the spots where coveys are found when found.

The best bobwhite quail dogs discover the downwind edge. In cases of an edge running dog, a downwind edge running dog and a dog that knows where to dive into the thicker cover, bird hunters agree that such behavior is not trained in the classical sense of dog conditioning. Such behavior is only learned through exposure. For the best bird dogs it typically takes two year's of season long exposure to acquire this behavior to a reliable degree of performance.

Kevin, one of the sources for this article, runs one dog at a time, concentrates solely on quail hunting and trains his dogs to allow for quail doubles. That last distinction is common for quail hunters in that their dogs are typically more of the refined pointing dogs that remain steady to point for long periods, steady to flush, shot and drop, breaking on command.

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