Crazy Busy

Big Thudd was here for the weekend and we got a lot of dogs run Saturday and Sunday with everybody getting into birds.  Alex Rickert and his family arrived yesterday to pick-up Peanut at the end of their East Coast vacation and are flying her back to Montana so they'll have her for the hun, sharptail, and Mountain Grouse opener next Monday.

You can tell fall is not far away as the woodcock are starting to move around.  There really isn't any flight activity yet but it will seem at times as the birds move about in their normal range.  Haven't seen a woodcock here at the kennel for about three weeks and then flushed one going down the driveway yesterday morning.  This morning we took Peanut to a cover that had double digit woodcock numbers earlier in the summer as well as some grouse and didn't move a bird.  Lucy found 4 woodcock deep in the spruces in one cover.  and LJ had 2 woodcock and a grouse in another. Then Ruby ran and had a really nice grouse find that she held until the bird flushed when it heard us getting close.

Some of the dogs are looking a little beat up from busting through the raspberries.  Max looks a little bit like he's gone a couple rounds of MMA as he attacks the cover with reckless abandon.  He's running strong and had three woodcock and two grouse finds yesterday.  Maggie had a couple of grouse and and Brandy also had strong outings yesterday.  On Saturday Pete went around one cover like he was on autopilot running strong on a cool morning (it was 39 when we broke away) and stuck 6 woodcock on five finds and was broke on all of them.