Back to Work

Little Thuddy earlier this summer.

After getting home around 1:00 Monday morning, yesterday was a bit of a recovery day for me and the dogs.  The only dog I ran yesterday was Trip who got left home over the weekend.  We moved 5 grouse up behind the house with her late in the morning.

Today, Tony and I were back to work.  We met at the church at 6 and headed out to run some dogs and scout some new covers.  The first cover was a new one and we moved 8 grouse and a woodcock with Trip and Bee.  It will definitely go on the list for the fall.  We then went into the Bad Back Cover with LJ and Frankie and moved 9 more grouse and another woodcock.

Then it was the Little Thudster's turn in what we are going to call the Dead Tree Cover.  We had never been in this cover and had marked it last spring when we were working dogs down the road from this spot.  Thuddy started out with a really nice limb find on a woodcock.  Then he bumped a woodcock and then he did something that he has been having trouble doing -- he had a broke find on a grouse that was in a tree over his head.  Then as if to prove it wasn't a fluke he had a second find on a brood that was all around him as well as one right over his head in a tree that he was staring up at.  He never moved as birds flushed all around him.  I think there was a total of 6.  Tony and I finished the morning with 27 grouse and 4 woodcock.

We then went back to the house to work the three sisters in the bird field they all did well.  I came home and Tony went off to run Rigby in Red Barn where she had two nice woodcock finds in a 45 minute run.

I had to laugh this weekend as one guy suggested that I might be doubling our numbers just to make for good reading.  I assured him that the numbers were accurate.