doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT- Dog question

I have been told by two different people who raise game birds and one pro trainer that professional trainers prefer to use hen pheasants because they emit less scent. Mike, as for your dogs nose woes, when in doubt, buy American. Peter

One day in late winter many years ago, I was game farm hunting with a couple friends and all three of us had some pretty hot dogs of field trial ilk. The bird guys put the birds out a little while before we arrived. We all figgered this was going to be a really easy outing; we were a little cocky. We put two dogs down at first and spent about an hour looking for the phez's. With long faces, we encountered the farm manager, the guy who put the birds out, asking if he was sure he had put birds out where we were hunting. He said, "Yup." And pointed about 40 yards away to a bird just watching us while the dogs were still busy searching. It was a good dose of humility.

Game biologist in AZ was experimenting with infra red sensors for the purpose of making field counts of wild turkey. Said he found that the turkeys could manipulate their down/feathers such that their infra red signature was not detectable with the very good equipment he was using. From this he surmised that a bird capable of locking in heat could probably limit scent with the same control. So I suppose a nesting bird might be doing just that to protect the nests.

I guess the fox, skunk, and raccoon have not heard about this as they find and destroy duck and upland game bird nests very quickly here on the prairies.