Originally Posted By: Rockdoc
[So how do you handle hens? Steve


Steve,

When the girls are working a hen, I tell those hunting over my dogs not to get trigger happy. It always tickles me a bit that so many folks over the years are amazed that I can tell them before the flush wherther the bird will be a rooster or a hen.

You must understand though, my girls are not allowed into the field until they will absolutely hunt under control and that they each have more than a hundred wild roosters a year shot over them in the 110 or more days they spend it the field each year. Under control means that when I call "no bird" they immediately ignore the flyer and go back to hunting. After a season or two, never more than that, they will have been called off enough hen flyers that their body language differs when they are working a hen they know will not be shot and a rooster which in all probablity will be.

This is Belle, now a pensioner who has brought more than 1200 roosters to the bag. I would have to look in her journal to tell you what how many more is.




Belle and one of those who have gunned over her.



Shelby, Belle's understudy, is now nudging a 1000 roosters for her gunners.





Tess is Shelby's understudy and because I did not feel she was up to my expectations, did not go afield until her second Autumn. Now four and a with a late start she is has learned from just a bit more than 200 roosters.




There are seven of them in my kennel and they hunt anything with feathers I ask them to and for many, many wonderful sports, some as young as 12 and some as old as 83 and in any kind of weather.



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Oh and yes there is an understudy for Shelby. She started on the job this spring and maybe she will hunt birds this fall.

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bc