The Dog of the Day Conundrum

Wild Apple LJ on one of his finds this morning. 

I knew when I named LJ dog of the day on Wednesday that I get a ration of s**t from Tony.  He felt Little Thuddy should have been named day dog.  He made some valid points as Thuddy did have two finds, but it's my blog and my rules so I stand by my pick for Wednesday.  Although it's fun to have Tony arguing for a pointer.  Today created a whole other set of problems.  After two braces LJ was clearly the dog of the day with two beautiful finds that both looked like the picture above.  On the second he stood high and tight while I stepped in front of him and took the picture below.  Then he stayed put for the flush and shot.

This woodcock sat like a pen raised quail and I almost nudged it with my toe after I had taken its picture.

Then came the last brace in section 4 of Red Barn.  Trip and Frankie were down and Frankie was the first to point with Trip coming for a back.  Tony made a good flushing attempt with no results.  We released both dogs and then Tony saw the woodcock scurrying away on the bare ground below the spruces.  We called the dogs back in and Trip had a stop to flush on the running bird.  While she was standing Frankie came in and backed.  Then a second bird got up.  When I released Trip she had another stop to flush on a third woodcock.  Frankie went on and had a nice find with Trip backing.  At this point LJ is still dog of the day in my mind.  Then comes the problem.  Trip went on point in a spruce thicket that was so thick that I never saw her until I flushed the woodcock she was pointing.  When I released her she went even further into the cover and had a non-productive.  While I was doing this Tony and Frankie went up the road into a part of section 4 that we usually don't get to.  I heard at leas two shots and Tony claims that Frankie had five finds while Trip and I headed back to the truck.  The old adage "you can't judge what you don't see" comes to mind but in this instance I'm going to acquiesce to Tony so I don't have to listen to him whine on Friday when we are scheduled to go out again.  Besides he already threatened to make sure that I didn't get any Scotch and steaks the next time Big Thudd comes North.  (By the way Jack was a lot sharper today and out-birded the upstart Little Thudster two to one.)

Bird count for today, including a bird I spotted on the road on our way in, was 18 woodcock.  Next week we plan to move out of our woodcock covers and start looking for grouse especially for the derbies that are all doing well on woodcock.