The brown dawgs are hard working dogs.  This past hunting season they really had to work to get any birds.  They had a lousy grouse, woodcock, duck season due to terrible weather and lack of birds.  We figured that we would head to a local pheasant farm to at least get them some birds and some retrieves.

For the last several years, we have gone to a pheasant farm that is close to our cabin.  The way it works at a pheasant farm, you buy whatever number of birds that you want and then they are released in the field (fields are usually at least 20 acres) and then you hunt.

Due to heavy rain in October and November, we decided not to go to the farm near our cabin because we were worried that the access roads would be too muddy.  We decided to try a different farm closer to our house.

At this particular place, you park near a busy road and walk a very long way to get to the field.  It is probably OK if you are hunting only one dog but when you have more than one, and need to swap them out, it is a long long walk.  Another draw back, you have to leave the dog you are not running in the car parked near a busy road.  It was fine because we can lock our crates, but it is not our preference.

Storm was up first and she really had to work hard to come up with any flushes.  The cover in the field is not what we have been used to at other farms.  It was pretty thin which meant the birds did a lot of running.  We could tell they were running from how Storm was working.

Storm had was able to flush several birds, but hubby had trouble hitting them.  Out of practice?  Not necessarily.  This farm had particular limits on the kind of shells you could use and that made it more difficult to hit the birds at a distance.  It may be fine if you are hunting with a pointing dog where you flush and shoot the bird at a closer range, but the brown dawgs are flushers and generally hubby waits for the bird to get up and away before taking a shot just to be safe around the dogs.

Hubby and Storm covered a lot of ground and no retrieves for her.

Next up was Freighter.

He worked and worked.  Freighter hunted near a gully which is a place hard working dogs can normally find birds.

Unfortunately, there were no birds in this area.

Freighter hunted over a hill.

No birds.

Freighter hunted the edge of the field.

No birds.

Another issue with this field was the close proximity of neighbors.  The other farms we hunt have few close neighbors.  They warned us at this farm that there was a neighbor who would call the DNR if we shot in the direction of his barn.  The distance is perfectly legal, but I guess he is not happy to have a pheasant farm next door.  This kind of put a damper on hunting that side of the field.  Who needs the hassle?  There may have been birds on that side of the field but we did not really work that area.

Freighter had a couple of flushes and actually got a retrieve.  He did a nice job on the retrieve and delivered to hand.

We also took Storm and Freighter out to hunt the field together.  Usually, if you have birds that are running, two dogs can flush them.

They reworked the entire field and Freighter had a flush.  Typical of Storm, she retrieved the bird.  Freighter let her which was very nice of him.  At least our hard working dogs both got a retrieve.

I am not really sure we will go back to this farm.  We like more over all cover in the center of the field.  We really do not want to teach our dogs to hunt the edges of a field or near roads which is where most of the birds they flushed were located.