Unpointable birds

Went for a nice walk today up on lower greens valley road with the dogs. Overcast with a bit of fog floating through the leafless trees, but the temperature is right around 50 and is was so nice to feel the fresh air. I was thinking a lot about pointing dogs and flushing dogs and the best strategy for nabbing those wily feathered beasts. Here's the thing; most hunters fall into either a pointing or flushing "camp." Flushing dogs search for birds and when found, chase and/or lunge at them to flush them out of the cover offering the hunter a shot. When pointing dogs find birds they thoroughly freeze their bodies so as to not scare the bird up, but rather "point" the bird out to the hunter. These strategies require different training techniques and offer completely different hunting experiences. But when your goal is to find birds and fill the game pouch, our resident roughed grouse doesn't always cooperate with either strategy. So what strategy is best? Is one really better than another?

As far as I understand it, those with flushing breeds train their dogs to hunt close (within gun range) and thoroughly search the cover. If the dog hunts beyond gun range, then birds flushed will simply fly off. Hunting over a flushing dog requires constant attention to keep the dog within range and stay prepared to shoot as the dog will likely flush a bird quickly.

Pointing dog owners hunt differently. Dogs are encouraged to range further and "hold" a bird on point until the hunter can get within range. Sometimes pointing dogs are trained to flush birds on command and other times they are trained to be steady (remain on point) until the hunter has flushed, shot, and given a retrieve command.

The problem is that birds don't always cooperate. In my experience, most grouse don't hold very long providing few opportunities for pointing. Other game birds, especially pheasant, often run along the ground to get away from dogs instead of flying. If you're going to have a flushing dog, how can you keep them in range once they're tracking a scent trail? If you're going to have a pointer, then what's the good of it if you only work them inside gun range? I guess the answer I've come to in the short time I've owned dogs is to adjust how I work the dogs depending on what I'm hunting. When hunting grouse or otherwise "spooky" birds, I do my best to keep the dogs within gun range. When hunting chukkar or pheasant, I let the dongs range and rely on them to hold birds until I can close the distance.

The biggest problem with this approach is running pheasant, especially the roosters. From what I've seen, once a pheasant has decided to run, it is unlikely to sit still and be "held" in place by a dog. So what to do? It's fairly easy to tell when a dog is on a running bird- nose to the ground, tail wagging furiously, sharp direction changes as they explore dead ends and return to the scent. When I see this, I have to keep the dogs within range despite their best efforts. So, within range on grouse and running birds, further out on steady birds. There is a little more room for error here than with a flushing dog, as the pointing reaction will likely give you a few moments more to react on those quick to flush birds. The other option is let the dogs run down those running birds and hope they learn to cut them off and hold them on point or flush them back to me...probably depends on the day:)

Probably boring to most people, but I needed to get my thoughts straight. Luckily, no one reads this besides me!