How many dog?

[Browningman]

I'm putting this question out here to see how many dogs you use while hunting pheasants. We have a guy that hunts our ground that we don't agree with his hunting style. So we are thinking about not giving him permission to hunt next season. He will use 5 dogs for 2 to 3 hunters and we feel he isn't giving the birds a chance. We normally use 1 to 2 dogs for 3 to 4 hunters. I'm just wanting your opinions as to how many dogs you use to hunt with.

[Ty Stromquist]

WE usually use how ever many OBEDIENT dogs the guys im with hunt with.

Do you really think that its not giving the birds a chance?

If you want to think that way perhaps we should all put away our shotguns and pick up some rocks.. Now the first guy who gets a pheasant by throwing a rock is next years Outdoorsman of the year FOR SURE! lol

[burrodebo]

Not giving the birds a chance?

That's an interesting perspective.

[tjm]

I would prefer to only hunt with 1 or 2 dogs, but It doesn't have anything to do with giving the pheasants a chance. To me it would seem hard for 2 or 3 hunters to handle 5 dogs. I don't prefer to hunt in big groups with lots of dogs because it becomes chaotic and you end up walking by more birds than you should be. With 1 or 2 dogs you can slow things down and let dogs work.

[Fish On]

I'd say more dogs will make it all the harder for crippled birds to escape. I see no problems with 4 or 5 or even 10 obedient dogs. (If you have that much land to hunt). Personally if I had 4 dogs I'd only hunt 2 at a time and keep the others rested for the next field. Keep rotating them.
But if 5 hunters have a dog a piece by all means hunt 5 dogs.

[cougarw]

In groups 1 dog per guy is all you need. More than that is just a headache. When by myself I hunt both of mine.

[south of 41]

Nice of you to share your land with others. I would hope how he respects your land while hunting has more influence as to wether he gets an invite back then how many dogs he runs.

I run 2 dogs and often hunt with others who have dogs. Sometimes the 3 of us could have 5 dogs down at once.

Do i know you?

[flatcoats]

personally, i would say 75% of the time more than 3 dogs, unless they work extremely well together, can be more of a detriment than it helps. most dogs just dont work on the same page as each other. if it were a perfect world, like fishon said, it would be nice to run "shifts" of dogs, but most of the time that doesnt happen because you dont want to upset people that want to run their own dogs..and im not saying theres anything wrong with that, but its just a reality we face with larger groups. my personal preference would be 2 dogs for three people....3 for 5....maybe 4 for 7,

you do run into issues with two few dogs and too many people as well. for example, my flatcoat when searching for scent HAS to quarter in front of the entire group from side to side...he just wont not do it. is this bad? of course not, he generally hunts with 4 or less people..generally 2...and he covers a lot of ground, but, if he's with 8 walkers, you may as well as call him done in an hour...and he probably was working far to much horizontal cover than vertical. long story short of my mumbling is south is right, if he respects you and your land....i wouldnt be overly concerned with the number of dogs he's running...but at the same time, its your land and you can run it any way you wish

[Browningman]

Thanks for all the comments.

[WAHUSKER]

The right amount of dogs is how ever many you and your hunting party are comfortable hunting with.

[dlwilson]

I agree with flatcoats on this one. I think 2-3 dogs is more than enough even for big hunting groups. Too many dogs, especially a mix of males and females can turn into a day of chasing tail instead of hunting which really sucks and has happend a few times. As far as giving the birds a chance I don't think it matters much. I remember one occasion hunting a section of corn with a large group and 5 dogs and we only kicked out a few. After we walked the section my uncle began to combine it, a few yards in and exactly where we and the dogs just walked jumped about 20 birds. Those birds will run circles around you and your dogs more times than not so I wouldn't ever worry about giving the birds a chance, if you have the habitat, especially nesting cover the birds will always be there.

[Black Lab 1]

We hunt with 1.5 dogs. I have 6 year old Lab that hunts really well for the entire group and a friend of mine has 1.5 year old lab pup that is still learning. She does really well on her own, but seems intimidated when hunting with my dog. Is this normal?

[south of 41]

My dogs tend to run bigger when other dogs are down. Guess they would rather find a bird then back a dog that has found one...

[Catfishsteve]

Well, my answer would be that unless those 5 dogs are pretty well trained and pretty reliabe, in that particular group, you're looking at pretty much a goat rope, as far as the hunting goes every week.

To me 5 dogs for 2-3 hunters is giving the pheasants a huge advantage.

Why?

Because the trick to hunting pheasant with dogs, (I'm assuming these are pointing dogs) is to get the dogs on to birds that don't know that the hunters are around.

With that many dogs and 2-3 hunters, you're usually going to have a lot of guys yelling and whistling at dogs all the time and the birds will be alerted and be up and out of there before anyone gets close to them.

Now, if those dogs are above average in experience and training, things may be different.

All told, 3 guys still have a 9 bird limit. You put three guys with even just 1 or 2 stellar dogs in a good field and the'll come pretty close to limiting out if they hit it right all day. Heck, they might limit out in half an hour on a really good day.

In my experience, generally, the more dogs you have down, the more time you end up spending hunting dogs instead of birds.

My money is on the pheasants on your farm next year when these guys are hunting. But, even if they are very good and lucky, they are still limited to 9 birds per day. You might consider telling them that on your land, the limit is 2 birds per hunter per day or something. I've known landoowners to do that kind of thing.

It's all how you like to hunt, I don't like to hunt with a bunch of guys whistling and yelling at dogs all the time. I think that makes it very hard to get on birds a lot of the time, especially early in the season.


Other guys probably like to do it differently.

[DiggerDog]

Originally Posted by Black Lab 1

We hunt with 1.5 dogs. I have 6 year old Lab that hunts really well for the entire group and a friend of mine has 1.5 year old lab pup that is still learning. She does really well on her own, but seems intimidated when hunting with my dog. Is this normal?

The lab pup he is talking about is my pup. She works well without another dog but seems shy or hesitant when working with another older and better dog. Is this a "more time in the field thing", a female thing, or what? She's my first female.

I'm looking for any and all help here.

My older, retired male lab, never had an issue in hunting with other dogs and always honored a pointers point. I never taught him that. It's just something he did on his own.

[packster]

I hunt all 3 of my dogs at the same time when I am by myself. That is a bigger challenge in itself then hunting but still neat to see them work.

Does this not give the birds a chance? Uhhmm those birds still run and take flight too far away. The tight holders will be caught by any single good dog anyways. So to answer your question, no, it should not have any advantage.

[Catfishsteve]

Originally Posted by DiggerDog

She works well without another dog but seems shy or hesitant when working with another older and better dog. Is this a "more time in the field thing", a female thing, or what? She's my first female.

Yep, every dog is different. Don't judge this dog by your older male lab.
I'd say this is not abnormal and I bet she'll be a lot better next year, especially if you take the time to hunt her alone some.

There is nothing wrong with your dog, she's just being a dog!

[Black Lab 1]

Originally Posted by Catfishsteve

Yep, every dog is different. Don't judge this dog by your older male lab.
I'd say this is not abnormal and I bet she'll be a lot better next year, especially if you take the time to hunt her alone some.

There is nothing wrong with your dog, she's just being a dog!

That's what we've told him. She has amazing instincts, listens extremely well, and can go all day but she is also a little skiddish in that she barks at every new person she sees. He's really patient with her and has done an outstanding job in training her. We've told him to give her time and that, aside from being a black lab, she's nothing anything like his male.

All in all, she's great to hunt behind. Now if she'd learn how to retrieve the bird she'd be set.

It's funny in that she'll retrieve dummy's all day long but will not retrieve a bird.

[Catfishsteve]

Originally Posted by Black Lab 1

It's funny in that she'll retrieve dummy's all day long but will not retrieve a bird.

Have you tried just taping some pheasant or duck wings to her favorite dummy or toy?

If you haven't tried that, do that and work with her like just in the house or yard, some place confined to start. Mix in plain dummies and the one with feathers and once she's doing that good, take the dummies out to the lake and work there. Then get a pigeon, later this summer and kill it and let it get cold, stone dead before you try her on it (the beer/bait fridge is good for this, don't freeze it, just chill it, you're only going to use them for one session) and while it's still fresh, but cool, work her with that.

Then get her on a warm, fresh dead pigeon. Then move up to bigger dummies and bigger dead birds.

Yes, we've officially hijacked this thread. Sorry.

[DiggerDog]

Originally Posted by Catfishsteve

Have you tried just taping some pheasant or duck wings to her favorite dummy or toy?

If you haven't tried that, do that and work with her like just in the house or yard, some place confined to start. Mix in plain dummies and the one with feathers and once she's doing that good, take the dummies out to the lake and work there. Then get a pigeon, later this summer and kill it and let it get cold, stone dead before you try her on it (the beer/bait fridge is good for this, don't freeze it, just chill it, you're only going to use them for one session) and while it's still fresh, but cool, work her with that.

Then get her on a warm, fresh dead pigeon. Then move up to bigger dummies and bigger dead birds.

Yes, we've officially hijacked this thread. Sorry.

I've taken wings and have attached them to her dummies with a rubber band and she does well with them. So well that she doesn't hesitate in retrieving them whatsoever. I haven't mixed them up and might just do that this weekend.

I'll also try the pigeon approach. I know the guy that has her mom and he told me his dog, my labs mom, never would retrieve pheasants, but would retrieve every other bird such as Prairie Chickens, Grouse, ducks, geese, and Dove. What's strange is last year when she was only about 6 months old she had no issues in retrieving pheasants. Now she runs to them and points them out like one of those ball markers on the PGA tour. When I tell her fetch it up she grabs it by a wing and will either drag it to me or just drag it a few feet then drops it and stands right next to it.


Oh...BL1, my pup told me if you keep making fun of her she'll bite your lab in the nads when she sees him next.