WoodieBoater

Finished my late season with a first for me. Shot a gorgeous white wing scoter drake. We hunted Ontario and had another group of guys come in to set up. It was a tight spot and we would have been on top of each other so they were gracious enough to let us hunt over their spread. Didn't do alot of shooting. Mostly just watched birds come in and drakes fall. But I did get the only crack at a scoter. Awesome late season for us. On to bunny season. Stay safe out there

56 minutes ago, dawsonscreek said:

Get him on some pigeons this summer too! Practices your wingshooting and his retrieving (and they are actually tasty!)

X2

The more bird contact you can get him in the off  season the better he'll be doing the real deal

He's a great looking dog. Glad to hear things are going well with him. It always adds to the fun being able to watch a dog grow and learn to work

Well another day on cayuga and another small limit of redheads. And believe it or not another banded redhead drake. This one from Saskatchewan in 2014. The majority of birds we saw were redheads and there's plenty of them. Good luck out there. I'm taking a day off tomorrow.

Yeah I thought the same thing. Although it was banded 5 years ago. That's a lot of migration. we're doing cayuga tomorrow again and yeah 20 degrees  with mild wind sounds Damn inviting haha

Hunted Cayuga just north of aurora this morning. It was pretty brutal.  Tons of birds moving but definately not for the faint of heart. Keeping gear out was almost impossible because of the waves. It was mostly pass shooting. Managed to shoot 8 redheads and a black. Had a big beautiful single drake come in on the longline that my buddy shot. Banded in Alberta in 2012. Pretty cool. There's plenty of birds there.

Gotta love getting snowball's out of a dogs beard haha. He looks good.

If you want to do the fingerlakes seneca and Cayuga are wide open. I know you can hunt Sampson. We're doing Cayuga today. Will report. 

Every launch I saw up there this week  is socked in hard. 

Yeah it was pretty vicious out there. Luckily we limited in about an hour. Any more time out there than that was dangerous for exposed skin

Hunted Ontario today. I can say that it was a brutal day for sure but the ducks were everywhere. Had an awesome shoot . I know a lot of guys are probably either already out, or are headed out in this storm the next couple of days. Be safe out there.

yeah its definitely rewarding but its a ton of time as well. every moment of a dogs life is training. And they have limits, which I always have to remind myself. I hunted ducks today and left him in the truck... its just too brutal of a day to have him in and out of water and in the wind.

If you decide you want to start looking P.M. me I can point you to a lot of kennels that I've talked to and can give you info on.

I cant remember if I posted here that he'd point ducks or not. I'm sure there's the potential for him to do it and yeah it'd probably be in a jumping situation. He may have pointed a cripple once, I've seen buddies dogs do that frequently but I wouldn't call it the norm haha. hes pointed mosquitos on my wall, its just instincts

A friend of a friend has a dog out of Ore Bank. I've never met or seen him but I know he does a lot of hunting with that dog. Other than that I cant give you any more info on them. As far as Wet Acres goes, I did speak with them a couple of times and talked to a couple of breeders about them. I formed the opinion that they are more into breeding "breed standard" show dogs than they are hunting dogs. They're very active in the show ring and not very active in the field. That just wasn't what I was looking for. On another note, if you want to get one of their pups they require a face to face interview at their kennel in mass. or at least they did when I talked to them.

I will send you some info on those breeding's in a P.M.

Steelie I'm sorry you lost ur dog. Its hard when there's just memories and pictures left.

And yes. short of labs I think they're the most people friendly gun dogs I've ever seen. Dutch goes into every store that will let him and hell love up on anybody that's interested.

Its great to see so much interest in the breed. They really are great do it all dogs. Id have to say though its all about putting time in to training as with any other breed.

Tg8 that pup looks great. Have you had a chance to get her out hunting at all yet this year?

I've seen a lot of pictures of Onions griff as well and he seems to be having a great first season. The breeder he got his from has puppies quite frequently as well.

Dennis I've had a couple of breeding announcements I got this week from other breeders if your interested in those as well. I can send you their way if you'd like. They're breeders I looked at when I was looking for a pup.

Really excited to have another pup around to hunt with next season. Cant wait to see a pair work together.

Had a pretty good opening weekend of late cut. Dutch did well retrieving ducks over the weekend. Struggled a little bit this morning. Good days and bad days I suppose.

We just got a breeding confirmation and a family member is getting a pup out of the same breeding that Dutch came out of in March. The more dog power the better. More updates to come.

Pretty cold late season so far

Dutch spent his first morning on a platform. Did pretty well, sat there from 630 to 830. We didn't kill any birds but it was good training anyways.

We got some kids out over thanksgiving weekend on some planted pheasants at a preserve. I didn't take any pictures, there was a lot going on trying to keep kids lined up and work the dog but Dutch did great. I don't know if he did it on purpose but he made two big loops to cut off and pin running roosters. Weather it was on purpose or not it was cool to watch. Found a ton of leftover quail coveyed up as well. Pretty cool to get kids out and provide good dog work for them. Hopefully some caught the bug.

working on sitting outside of the blind when there's a lot of distractions helped a lot for me. I always made Dutch sit in one spot while I made dinner and banged around in the kitchen. Or when I was working on something in the shop, and that transferred elsewhere. It helps them learn to watch activity without moving. Having a small space that's hard for them to get off of helps too, a training table or whatever. I used my workbench or couch ottoman. He's pretty rock solid in a blind now.

Did a quick morning duck hunt last Friday before deer season started. Decent group of resident birds and some nice dog work.

Probably going to hold off on the grouse woods for a while. Maybe some more duck reports to come

Now I feel like I've been hard on them haha. Drahths can be lovy dovy just not nearly to the extent that griffs are. They just have different personalities as a rule.

Funny you should mention being excited to see what he's like at 2... Dutch turns 2 tomorrow and I can honestly say that dog never ceases to amaze me. Not just with hunting ability but obedience and manners as well. And like onion said intelligence is there and it makes training easy. He's not stubborn either. Which again makes training easy.

And on that note I'll tell you what I've noticed for differences. The most glaring difference to me is in the personality. Most drahth's I've seen are what I'd call "sharp" and aloof. Tons of instinct and prey drive and they aren't so concerned with weather you're keeping up or not. With them you're more an alpha than a hunting buddy. And They'll hunt just to hunt. They were originally bred to hunt everything. Birds. Fox. Deer. The German hunt test actually still includes a Fox retrieve and blood tracking I believe. Whatever it is  a drahth thinks it was put on this earth to kill it. You may be able to find a german wirehair that's a bit softer (really the same breed just not held to the same registration standards) but most true drahths are real sharp. I figure you've gathered that griffs are pretty much the opposite.

I wouldn't say any of that is a pro or a con. It's all about what you want. If you really break it down... even if you're a hardcore birdhunter  how much time do you spend in the field with a dog? Maybe TOPS a quarter of the days in a year? The rest is being In the household and training... for me I wanted a dog that was easy to live with 260 days out of the year and would curl up under my desk at my feet at work but would turn it on when I can hunt. That's the WPG.

Beyond that appearance wise pretty similar. I'd say generally griffs have a bit longer coat but functionally they're pretty identical. Dutch gets confused for a german wirehair all the time.

Best of luck. You'll both be hooked in no time haha. Let us know how it goes.

I'd recommend looking into NAVHDA in the spring as well. Great organization and tons of training help there

Sure thing. How's ur pup doin? Have you had a chance to hunt her anymore?