Why do you hunt?
“Being able to watch your young dog come into his own.”
“My Springer Bonnie. It’s not a day in the field without her.”
In my viewer surveys virtually all of you said something similar. Dogs rule, and we hunt so we can watch them perform magic in the field.
So why condemn pen-raised birds?
One reason might be our own biases. I’m not judging your leanings, mine are probably similar. But if we’re honest about the pre-eminence of dog work to our experience, why aren’t well-raised planted birds just as valuable?
Do dogs ignore the scent of a liberated bird, while pointing a wild bird? Show me the evidence. For that matter, can you distinguish a well-raised planted bird from a wild bird without looking at the peeper hole in the beak?
Does your dog’s tail droop when pointing planted birds? At a preserve, does he trot instead of gallop, boot-lick rather than range? When you command “fetch,” does he spit out planters?
“Watching a setter work in a beautiful field on a gorgeous day is always the best day.”
Maybe it’s all in our heads, and I get that. We love wild places, untrammeled ground, off-the-grid coverts. But that’s not what we’re talking about (or is it?). Unless a covert resembles something from a Mad Max movie, I wonder if your dog cares whether it is aesthetically pleasing or simply a bird-holding environment.
But how wild is wild? Beyond the quails and grouses, virtually every upland bird we shoot at was planted at some point. Do you shun chukar hunters because their birds were planted in Nevada in the thirties? Wild pheasants are simply descendants birds Judge Owen Denny “released” on his Oregon farm in the 1880’s, or similar, later efforts in Redfield, South Dakota, etc. Gotta problem with that?
“Wild hatched” might be a better description of the birds some cherish more than their domestically-reared cousins. But why can’t we value a released bird that acts just like its wild counterpart, much as our dogs do.
“Seeing the dogs do what they were born to do.”
We’ve all encountered bad planted birds, bad apples that spoiled entire barrels of good introduced birds. They flounder instead of flushing, our dogs catch them on the ground, and nobody’s happy, especially the birds. But many of us have also encountered released birds that thunder, tower and jink just like wild birds.
My dogs don’t seem to know the difference and truth be told, I’ll bet yours don’t either.
[…] an article i read a few years ago – and think it sums things up nicely on the subject Does your dog know the difference? | Scott Linden Outdoors Reply With […]
I think its mostly because in some areas bad apple birds are from bad apple game preserves. If every preserve owner / operator strived to provide the strongest flushing, strongest flying, Wildest acting birds I think people would be singing a different tune.
Unfortunately raising game birds for hunting isn’t nearly as easy (or cheap) as just raising game birds and keeping them alive.
For every one quality preserve out there doing things the right way, how many back yard operations doing things anyway they please do you think there are?
On the flip side of the coin make the birds too wild and they folks who are not serious bird doggers and maybe only go “hunting” every few years, are going to complain that they couldn’t find the birds or couldn’t hit them if they did find them, and some of these folks can’t help having the put N take mentality of ” I paid for five birds, there for I should be bringing five birds home”
instead of thinking “Gee what a great experience this was almost like hunting”
I am from Western Wa where we only have state run pheasant release sites and preserves are pretty much thing of the past in this area. Overall they can be a miserable experience – image a line of pheasant drivers,none of whom know each other or wish to coordinate facing a large field with planted pheasants in it. On the opposing side of that field you have another line of drivers facing the direction of the first line they are all waiting for legal shooting time at 8 am. 8:00 saturday morning rolls around and its a free for all, and a bloody miracle more people don’t get injured.
The VERY few times I have participated I was agitated the whole time, I hated every minute of it, and besides feeling grateful I didn’t die I was in a pretty bad mood when it was over… MY DOG on the other hand loved every second of it and didn’t know any better, couldn’t care less that the birds were raised in a pen, and had a jolly good time… There were also a lot of kids enjoying themselves and elderly folks enjoying an opportunity they might not have had, so that is something to consider as well.
I suspect when all my options are whittled down to put N take N pen raised, I will participate again for the sake of the dogs, because a life without bird dogs working birds is no life for me.
Like I said …
Here in Wisconsin there is very little opportunity on public lands to hunt hatched-in-the-wild pheasants. And on private lands here – as elsewhere – populations have plummeted as land use patterns have retreated from habitat-friendly practices.
We do, however, have an active state-managed breeding and planting program that augments wild populations by stocking birds on public hunting grounds. The brood stock doesn’t produce birds that have a realistic chance of over-winter survival in meaningful numbers, so this amounts to a put-and-take program. It’s enough to keep us long-timers interested and attract new participants to the sport.
I’ve hunted these birds for years. About 3 seasons back, Steve the Wonderdog and I got a chance to chase wild-hatched birds for four glorious days in South Dakota. It was a blast. But I have to tell you that the birds were found in the same types of habitat, they flushed just as wild – and just as close – as the birds we hunt here, they flew just as fast, and they fell just as dead. About the only difference I could tell was longer tail feathers (because they weren’t all birds-of-the-year), a tendency to flush more quickly, and more birds seen in multiple-flush situations. Of course The Wonderdog didn’t sense *any* of these differences. He was just hunting.
There you go …
I don’t hunt planted birds because I don’t pay to hunt. Other than the license, clothes, dog, dog food, etc. Our country is unique. We have public hunting land. Most other countries do not. That allows the average person, as opposed to the rich land owning elite, to hunt. This is one of the aspects of the USA that makes me proud to be an American. It’s also the correct way to insure our future. Not just as hunters, but as people. If the average person is not allowed to hunt and enjoy nature they are much less likely to care about and protect nature.
Agreed, Jeremy. But with all due respect, you DO pay to hunt. “Paying” to hunt includes the value of your time, fuel, lodging 9or camping) plus the items you listed. While this discussion isn’t about hunting preserves per se, if you add in those costs (you do at work, for example), then a preserve hunt could be a better value than driving three days to South Dakota to see a couple wild birds. As a philosophy, hunting public land is admirable. Practically speaking, not so much.