Hunt Day

Today was a busy Brittany day. We started out this morning doing something I have always wanted to do. We served as ‘retrievers’ at. “European” shoot at Pheasant Valley Farm. If you don’t know, this hunt seeks to mimic hunts in Europe where the birds are driven to stationary hunters in stationary shooting positions. The ‘pick-up’ dogs remain behind the hunters and retrieve birds downed behind the hunters stations. When there is a break in the action we move in front and seek out those birds.

While Brittany’s do retrieve, they are not retrievers per se. The dog to my left was a Draughauer. To the right was a Golden Retriever. Both dogs were content to remain ‘in place’ until they were ‘sent’ on a retrieve. This, of course, makes no sense to a Brittany whose only goal is to run through the cover, point a bird, and then retrieve it. The front part of all this is the fun part (so say my dogs). Why, in the name of everything good, would you lop off that part?

It was comical to watch the dogs (whining all the while) watch pheasants fly over unscathed and me telling them “no bird.”

In the afternoon we got back to normal duty. Three hunters, two dogs, and yours truly. We were in the clean-up position. Birds were everywhere and our hunters shot well. Nim caught a half a dozen cripples among the many birds that were pointed and flushed. Miss Shelby had a couple of nice points on her own.

This was a hunt sponsored by Lehigh Valley SCI. They hosted several ‘wounded warriors’ that made the hunt special.

I asked they guys if they had fun, and if they would come again. They said, “yes.” Then, one asked, “how about you?” I said that the dogs and I always have fun, sometimes more than others.