Freighter’s job at our pheasant hunt last Saturday was to hunt a dense stand of thickets.  As the youngest, he was the last dog out so he got a challenging hunt.

Chesapeake Bay Retriever
Freighter Is Ready To Work

Hunting The Thickets

At first hubby and Freighter hunted some heavy cover in the middle of the field but they had little luck.

Hunting Dog
Freighter Working The Cover

What you cannot see in the picture is that much of the ground under the cover was under water.  It was not likely that the birds would be there and they were not.

Hubby suspected that the birds were in the area of thickets that were to the edge of the field.  These thickets were very dense.  A dog could get in there, but there was no way for a hunter to follow.

Thickets Pheasant
Freighter In The Thickets Looking For Pheasants

Freighter hunted all one side and then went around the back and hunted the other side of the thickets.

Dog Hunting Thickets
Around The Back Side Of The Thickets

The hope was that if Freighter found any birds, he could flush them out of the thickets so the hunter could get a clear shot.

When we arrived at the pheasant preserve, the guy who runs it said that we should do better with our flushing dogs than if we had pointers.  What?  I guess he meant that it was a good thing we had a dog to get the birds out of the bushes.

On the back side of the stand of thickets Freighter flushed a hen.  He was deep in the bushes so he did not see the bird flush and once hubby shot it, he did not see where it landed.

Hunting Retriever
Hunt It Up Freighter

Hubby told Freighter it “hunt it up” and he did.

Chesapeake Pheasant
Freighter Found The Pheasant

He found the pheasant and made a nice retrieve.

Retrieve Pheasant
Freighter Retrieving The Pheasant

Freighter is a young dog and still in training so he is required to come to heel and deliver this bird to hand.  The older dogs deliver to hand but they do not necessarily have to come all the way to heel.  With a younger dog, it is a good idea to keep your standards as high as possible.

Freighter Delivers To Hand
Freighter Delivers To Hand

This was not an easy retrieve for Freighter because the bird was not dead.  In fact it was flapping quite a bit but Freighter still made a very nice retrieve and held the bird.  One of the reasons we try to get out to pheasant preserves is because it is a great opportunity to get in some training while the dogs have a bit of fun.

Freighter hunted a bit more and found more birds, but unfortunately there were some misses.

Freighter Working It
Freighter Working It
This Hen Got Away
This Hen Got Away

The sun had come out and it was warming up, so we took a break for lunch.  After lunch Thunder and Storm came out to hunt the thickets on the other side of the field.  Not to worry about the missed birds.  It seems most went over there and they eventually found them.

Freighter With the Birds
Freighter With The Birds

A Word About The Hop

I apologize for the lack of a hop last week.  Mr. Linky’s hosting company was having server issues.  The linky was messing up my blog so that it would not load so I eventually removed it.  Things should be back to normal this week.  Thanks to everyone who tried to link up last week.

I will also be a bit late stopping around this week.  This is the last hunting weekend this season (I promise).  Hubby will be hunting and the brown dawgs will be hanging with me, but they won’t be sitting around because I hope to get in a couple of photo shoots.

This is the Thursday Barks and Bytes Blog Hop hosted by Heart Like A Dog and 2 Brown Dawgs.  Grab the badge and the linky code and join us!  Its fun!

Barks And Bytes
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11 thoughts on “Freighter Hunts The Thickets – Barks And Bytes

  1. Congrats Freighter! your christmas menu is complete now :o) and it’s great to see such a smile on your face when you go to work (humans can learn a lot from you lol)

  2. Pure joy on Freighter’s face, this is what I am very good at! What do you do with the feathers? I have a hat my Aunt Toni made in the 40’s with a sweep of pheasant feathers. It is a classic! As are the Chessies who fetch these up!

  3. Always enjoy hearing about their hunting trips. We have some areas with good Pheasant populations, but they too are a virtual jungle and even if you kick up a bird, getting a shot is nearly impossible.

  4. He did a good job, despite the challenges. And he stayed the course, which is really what you need in a good hunting dog, right?

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