Little Thuddy Outbirds The Old Man

Some days are better than others and Jack had a bit of an off day this morning.  He and Little Thuddy got run together in section four of Red Barn.  Jack had a heck of a limb find.  He was about 150 yards away when the Garmin beeped and I headed right to him only to discover that he was on the opposite side of an old oxbow of the brook.  The water was too deep to wade and it was a long way around with out any trails.  After bushwacking almost 200 yards I got to the end of the canal and started up the other side.  I finally got to Jack and he was still standing tight with a woodcock right in front of him.

Little Thuddy had two broke woodcock finds and might have earned dog of the day honors except for one little screw up.  Tony and I were crossing a small opening in the woods when the Thudster came running across in front of us.  Just as he got to us a woodcock popped out of a little fir stand and flew right at us.  I was in front and literally had to duck out of the way as the bird was obviously more concerned about what was in hot pursuit behind it than what is in front of it.  Tony also had to duck so it took him a moment before he could hit the button on the Tri-tronics and get Thuddy to stop.  If he'd been running with one of the other derbies it would not have been a grave error but since he was being judged by the higher standards of his bracemate dog of the day honors went to LJ.

LJ ran in the first brace with Trash and had three nice woodcock finds as well as a two backs. On one back Trash had a bird on the other she didn't.  I also heard a bird get up as we were walking along to give us five in the first brace.  The second brace consisted of Frankie and Trip.  She had two finds and Frankie had three but it was a bit of a cluster thing with each dog have a breach of manners at least once primarily in situations where there was no bird but a dog had stopped and the other should have stayed put after establishing a back.  The total for the day was 14 woodcock, O grouse.  We met at Tony's a 5:30 and had finished the third brace by 8:45.  It was already starting to warm up and it was pretty humid with no air moving.  We're supposed to get thunderstorms tonight and a cool front moving through behind them.  Should be even better dog working weather later in the week.