In this episode we talk about training, dogs and our excitement for opening day of the grouse hunt and the bird hunts starting up in Utah. Part one is pre-hunt recording before we get out and get hunting! Part two is after the hunt and how everything went down. Hope you all enjoy!
In this episode we talk about training, dogs and our excitement for opening day of the grouse hunt and the bird hunts starting up in Utah. Part one is pre-hunt recording before we get out and get hunting! Part two is after the hunt and how everything went down. Hope you all enjoy!
Hey folks. Welcome to the Bird Dog Podcast. My name is Ty Erickson. I'll be your host today. Thanks for joining in with us. I'm excited to, record this podcast this morning. this is gonna be part one, of this podcast and we are. Headed down to do some grouse hunting. today is opening day of the grouse hunt here in Utah. Also, our dove hunt is opening up, but lately we just haven't seen as many doves around, at least when I've been scouting. There are some, but we're gonna go down and we're taking all the pointing dogs out, and we're gonna go have some fun and see if we can get some grouse, get up into the quakes and the pines and, enjoy. Some time today doing that. So got a good group of guys here today. we have, Mike Birch, who's a friend and a past client. Then I got my three trainers, with us today. So, We have Jeff Brinkerhoff. Jeff's been with me for half my life. No, I'm just kidding. Jeff's been with us for, eight years or so. Ian Norton, he is, been with me for about just a year or shy of that. And then we got Orland f our Rookie, our new guy, the new kid on the block. So we're excited to have him. if you have any comments or anything like that, you can send us a DMM on Instagram at the Bird Dog Podcast, or you can send us an email at the Bird Dog Podcast at. gmail.com and we'll try to answer those questions. And again, appreciate you taking the time to listen to the podcast. Today we are driving, so you're gonna hear some road noise and, just sounds of the car and everything. So hopefully it's not a. Too distracting, but we hope to have a fun little show this morning. So, Orland, let's go ahead and have you talk and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background.
Orlyn:Yeah, sure. Um, I don't know really what to say, but I, uh,
Tyce:tell us about yourself, where you're from.
Orlyn:I'm just local. You're about your hunting. Experience. I live right next to Ty, out on West Mountain. I've, uh, pretty much bird hunted my whole life. Um, ever since I can remember, I'd always pretty much big enough to hold a pheasant in my hands and pick it up. That's pretty much my hunting career so far. Um, I'm 22. I'm married, starting a little family and so. It's been fun to see that throughout life. Like, I don't know, I never knew like what I was gonna do in life and still deciding on what I'm gonna do and going through school
Tyce:orlyn been with us for about, uh, was it been about two months almost? Or, yeah. Coming up on that close. So it's still in the beginning stages, we hope. Long term you become a dog trainer, Orlin. So, yeah.
Orlyn:And not, not very many people can say like, oh, I train dogs for work. Yeah. And like the people I've told, they're like, oh, really? Like, that's really cool. And how, how's that? And I just say, you know what, it's, I honestly, it doesn't feel like work. Yeah. it's just fun to be around the dogs and it's fun to see dogs. Yeah. Um, kind of grow and learn and become who they really are.
Tyce:So just starting off so far, tell us, How you feel about training? What are the things you were like, oh, I didn't realize it was gonna be like this, or, I don't know, the things that you were kind of surprised, it was, a little harder in some ways, or were your expectations about what you're thinking or,
Orlyn:yeah, at first I thought really, I just thought, oh, well you can train a dog. Anybody can train a dog, um, to do pretty much anything you want. And that is true to an extent. But there are like processes and different methods that you can use to create a gun dog. Um, and there definitely is a difference between obedience and the gun dog work, that the gun dogs do. So it's cool to see, um, just the processes that happen with that. Yeah.
Tyce:So we trained, I can't remember how long ago it was, a year or so ago. We trained, for Orland's dad before he came and worked for us. they have French Brittany's, and we trained, I think we trained three or four of those for you guys. Yeah. At Orland. So, and they'll, we'll be fives here soon.
Orlyn:We've got a, a little female that hopefully can do pretty well,
Tyce:so they're cool dogs. And just a little plug if, you guys are looking for a French Brittany, they have a really nice little litter on the ground right now, and I think the reason I like French Britney's, Partly as they're small. So if you're wanting an indoor dog, the points and they have pretty good little retrieves, generally, naturally from what I've seen on that breed. Uh, check out the French Britney's. you can find them on Instagram at, is it Lucky seven Kennels? Yeah. Lucky Seven Kennels. Lucky Seven Kennels on Instagram. And you can check out, their pups. They got some beautiful pups right now. So if you're wanting a hunting dog for, uh, this next season, hit'em up, check'em out, see what they have and uh, and we can train it up for you too if that's something you would like also. So, um, we got today. Tell us what dog you have today, Orland. So I have
Orlyn:copper today. He's our, male, he's just a hard hunter and I thought, you know, he could tackle the mountain today. I didn't want to take out some of our females'cause they're, it's the first hunt of the year, so, I thought he'd be more in shape and more at it. So I gotta compete with these guys as, you know, setters and different short hairs. So, um, the French Britney's do like to hunt a little bit closer, which I like. And I just like their temperament. They're really, really good family dog. I could bring'em in the house if I wanted.
Tyce:How'd you guys get into French Brittany's?
Orlyn:we've had pretty much every pointer you can think of. Mm-hmm. Um, my dad had a ULAs and, uh, thaws, short hairs, wire hairs. And my brother, my little brother had, he just saw'em on line one day, Uhhuh. And we bought a female from Ohio and had her shipped all the way here and on the airplane, and she just became, An awesome hunter, really small dog. It was an orange and white female. Her name was Penny. And Penny. basically started the French Britney Saga, you could say. we got Penny, and then we got a, another female from South Dakota. Her name is Lou and she's a hard hunter as well. And then we've kept Izzy, which is a puppy out of. Penny and, and we've just been keeping, uh, puppies as we've been going and just kind of as your grow, growing. Buying from different breeders. Growing and growing. Yeah. Copper's from Arizona. Yeah. So copper's a really good dog.
Tyce:he's a cool looking dog. He's the tri. Factored color. He is what? He is black and tan and white and, yeah.
Orlyn:The French Britney's have the black color gene. Okay. So they come in all, they come in black and white. They come in liver and white. They come in, uh, the orange and white, and then they come in the tri colors with the black. And the tan and then the white as well. Yeah. They have that roaming all over their, their front arms and their back end and yeah. The American Britney is more of a white, just solid white colored. Yeah. And the French Britney has a really cool kind of roam pattern to'em. Yeah. Um, which I love.
Tyce:What do you say they average in weight? The females to the males?
Orlyn:I would say probably, 30 to 35 pounds. 30. 35 pounds. So not huge.
Tyce:Yeah. I feel like naturally when we've worked with them, naturally they have pretty good retrieves too. So I think sometimes even better than the American Brittany. Um, some of the Americans we've had in, some of'em retrieve better than others. So, but today I'm, I'm excited lots of times when we do a little employee getaway things here. Go out and work our personal dogs we're, we're most of the time obviously working for our clients and, and training their dogs up. So it's fun to be a little selfish every once in a while and work our personal dogs and, since it's the opener that's what we're doing. But today we have all pointing breeds. So, as you guys have been following along, I have. My little red setter Sharpie that I picked up out of Colorado this last year. And I'm excited to work him. This will be his first hunt and, first time on grouse. So that's how we're doing a part one. It kind of give you guys The good and the bad and how things go down. But Orland, anything else more you want to add?
Orlyn:No, it'll be cool to see, you know, all the, the pointers today, how they do. Um, we'll have to do like a little recap of how it went, but I'm excited to see copper and excited to shoot some grows.
Tyce:Yeah. So we're going to hopefully some of these dogs, since they haven't. Smelled grouse. Hopefully we'll knock one down. We'll give'em a big whiff in their nose, kind of get'em dialed in on what we're, going after. And then we should be off to the races. So this area I hunted years ago. I haven't been there for a couple years, but just like most areas, elk hunting or grouse hunting, if the habitat's there, the birds, they're gonna cycle up and down. But, there should be birds in the area still, hopefully. It's a high hatch year. Um, seems like the reports, our numbers are up around the state. I've seen a lot of Quails cies of quail and, hatches and also some pheasants with chicks. So it's looking like a good year. So we're excited about that. So, all right, let's turn the mic over to Ian. Oh boy. All right. These guys are all first time in podcasts and we're all still waking up. It's pretty early here. So we're getting going. Not a morning person. So, Ian, tell us about, tell us about you.
Ian:Uh, yeah, my name's Ian. So I've worked for t for six or seven years. I've always wanted to get into hunting, but my family.
Tyce:Tell us about your background first. Yeah, I that what you did previously and how, how we met.
Ian:I used to be a mechanic. I used to be. Um, are you still, are still still kind of mechanic? I, I'm a shade tree mechanic now, but I used to be a technician is what they used to call'em technician at the Ford dealership. So I used to work on Fords. Um, like working with my hands. So got to the point where I was getting tired of turning wrenches and I actually had a dog trained by Ty. we got a little, VLA at Brittany Mix, so he looks more vla, but I think he has some of that Brittany. Personality in him. I guess Jeff helped train him. Triggers his name. I had trigger trained. And then after he was done training, Tyce asked me to come and work for him. And I've always wanted to go hunting. I, like I said, I grew up in a family that, Didn't necessarily love the outdoors. my family's idea of camping was going to the Marriott, so out I was ready to stretch my legs, go outdoors and have some fun in the shooting stuff, having dogs. We never had dogs growing up.
Tyce:I kinda remember how we, how it came up. You working for me? Did we just, you remember that at all? It just kind of happened.
Ian:It just kind of happened driving. It was just meant to be driving, driving past your house one day, and I think he just asked. And my wife was in the car. She says, you bet he'll come and work for you. So I was already planning on saying yes, but she did it for me.
Tyce:Oh, we're glad Ian is part of the team. He's an optimist, just positive guy to be around and works hard and does a great job and has trained a lot of dogs, so he knows what he is doing. Um, anything else? Ian seen a dog or two in my day. Tell us about training. what's the hardest thing about training in your book?
Ian:So, I found that the hardest and most rewarding. Well, yeah. So I found that, when I first started, I was kind of like, I thought you could train any dog to do anything, and I guess I was under the belief that you could turn'em into robots, and I was, I was wrong. So it's interesting to see that, you know, every dog has a different personality. You can, you can see that, some dogs are a little bit more soft. Some dogs Hammered out a little bit more. And it's you're saying there too, how genetics play a role. Oh, yeah, yeah. Flood lines and stuff. Yeah. So I didn't know that there was such thing as a show line and a hunting line, so, The way that I figure it is, if you want a hunting dog, I would go and get the most bonkers balls to the wall hunting crazy pup.'cause I think you can always train obedience into the dog. if you stay on top of it, you stay. Yeah, consistent with the training, you can, have ob them, Bence with any dog. You can have them be a great obedience dog, but it's so hard to go and put, you know, the drive into a dog. If they just don't have it, it's really hard to get them to. To want to go and have that high drive. And I would prefer having a high drive dog that I can reign back and just calm down when I want'em to calm down. But when it's time to go, it's go time. And they live for that. So that's what I like about it.
Tyce:Yeah. What's the most re rewarding thing I guess, you see in training? Can you think of anything comes?
Ian:So, I like it when we send the dogs home and the owners are like, that's not my dog. You know, there's no way that's my dog. this dog is a completely different dog. I never thought the dog would be able to just sit there for 30 seconds by itself, let alone, you know, five minutes and just be chill. Be calm. So it's really rewarding for me to see affirmation. Yeah. Yeah. It's really rewarding for me to see that the people can take control of their dog and their dog can be obedient for them. Yeah. So it's just the culmination of all the training all the time, the sweat, that's put into these dogs. And then the owner's obviously, you know, being grateful and noticing that there's a difference in their dog.
Tyce:Yeah. I think That's what I would just encourage, people when they have their dog trained, ask obviously any questions you have with your trainer, just to make sure you're on the same page. Page, but also just, you know, it helps the trainer, um, or trainers feel, really grateful when you're grateful to them.'cause behind the scene you see just a finished product, but you don't see the daily, cleaning kennels and the. Hot and the cold and the out. I mean, we're training in, you know, all this weather. It's just, you're just sweaty or you're freezing, and it's just that daily repetition that really needs to happen to produce a good dog. And so behind that finished dog is a lot of hours and time is really our most, precious commodity of our life. And so I always think about, I'm like, I'm training these dogs and giving my life to making these dogs for clients. And granted, it's our work. And so you're giving your life in whatever you're doing right, to provide for your family and stuff like that. So just being grateful and, and obviously we're very grateful that we get to do this for a living and be able to work with so many amazing dogs and, uh, with awesome people that are passionate about, bird hunting and dogs like ourself, like Mike. We'll get on here in a minute. we met through, you know, us training his dog. And he's been on the podcast before and become a good friend. and,, there's a lot of awesome relationships that happen, through bonding over these dogs'cause it's, a similar passion and that we are all really love. Ian, anything else you want to share? Uh, I don't think so. I'm just happy to be here. He's happy to be here. All right, we'll follow up with you in part two. All right, Jeff, you're up We got Jeff. Hello, Brinker Hoff. My, uh, wingman of a long time. Jeff, tell us about yourself. Say hi and tell us about yourself.
Jeff:Oh, hello. I love talking about myself. No, not really at all. Um, I grew up in Alabama, good times down there. Um, didn't do any bird hunting or really any hunting as a youth. Just messed around, I guess. We always had a dog growing up. Seemed like just a no hunting dog. Just a random stray dog. anyway, moved up here when I was 15 to Utah. And that's where I've been all over, kind of up and down Wasatch front, living here. tell us how, how you became part of the team, Jeffrey, part of the team, and tell how we're related, I guess so about that. I've known Tyson for a while. So my brother's wife and, Rachel Tyson's wife are sisters. So we've gotten together on extended family stuff and so we've kind of known each other, from that way. And I went to school. Uh, got a degree in criminal justice law enforcement. I was trying to get a job somewhere. back in, I think it was 2010, trying to find something. Nothing was working out. There's a lot of competition back then. Not, probably not like it is now, but. nothing was coming up and there was any kind between jobs and I don't know if I reached out to you or something. I don't know how it all, can't remember if it was just talking to your family or something, or, I don't remember exactly how it happened, but, I think you were growing and you needed some more help. And I've always liked dogs, working with dogs, so I'm like, oh, This would be good. I think, and that's how it all started. Pretty much. I think
Tyce:I'd gone through, there were a couple young guys and I couldn't really afford to have an employee and Jeff was my first employee that we could. One, afford to pay enough to kind of keep around and then two, just have enough work and yeah, and the company had grown to that point where we needed the extra help. So, yeah, grateful for Jeff. He's an awesome. Hard worker and really good at the dogs. tell us about your personal dogs. Jeff, what do you have?
Jeff:Oh, the pack was down. We're, we've got three now. Um, got two German short hairs, a couple black and white GSPs. Um, great dogs. Just love'em to death. Great. Out in the field. Go crazy. And then, I keep'em inside and they know how to chill inside. So they're just, um, people that say, oh, GSPs can't be inside. They're too wild. That's not true. You just gotta train, get obedience and train them up. Yeah. You just have, they have to know some obedience, um, dogs. Any dog. Yeah. Dogs feed off of your body language too, and you're inside chilling and they're. They'll usually just hang inside chilling. If they're not, you just tell'em to chill out and go lay down or do something. So just use that obedience to control. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, they're awesome dogs. Love'em. And I got a little lab for the waterfowl work, I had a. Another lab male that passed away a few months ago. He was, he's a little bit older, so passed the torch on to the young, younger, little female.
Tyce:Yep. She has some, she has some big shoes to fill. She's doing good though.
Jeff:Yeah, she, loves the water, loves to retrieve.
Tyce:Jeff, do you ever remember the first bird you ever shot? It was, uh, I think, uh,
Jeff:it had to have been a duck. I think it was duck season. Um, it was over with me then over. Yeah, it was over with you over river? Uh, were we jump shooting? Jump shooting? Yep. Okay. It was in the evening time, I believe, like it was getting dark Is that, that one day we came down that one evening and we had a pretty good shoot down here. Yeah, I believe there's pictures of, I need to find those. I don't have pictures of those, but yeah. Came and jumped. Shot. What'd you think? It was good. I mean, it was awesome. So it's fun shooting ducks. They're, they're always fun.
Tyce:Uh, Jeff's a good shot. He's, He's probably our main gunner at the kennel right now. And, uh, we have a board, we check off the birds we've shot and there's been a few thousand that died 10,000 more easily died to Jeff shooting ability. So, you get to be, become a pretty good shot on birds when you're, uh, When you're training upland dogs, so, You've shot some grouse before, haven't you, Jeff?
Jeff:I've shot one grouse. It was on private property. We're just kind of hanging out with some friends and I brought a dog and they're like, Hey, let's go around and find one found one. Um, shot it and cooked it up and ate it for lunch right there. And it was delicious. It was really good. And that was it.
Tyce:We're excited. We're gonna target rough grouse today. Uh, here in Utah we have rough grouse and we have blue grouse, or dusky grouse is another name for'em. the habitat rough grouse usually hang out in is a little more. Generally more rolly, polly, kind of pines, quakes, they're not as on the bluegrass, tend to be up on the steep high elevation slopes in the pines and quakes. and, so we're gonna target this habitat and, we're hopeful uh, Orland, tell us your first bird you shot. I didn't get to ask you that. I always like to hear. The first thing you remember, like when you're hunting or, I mean, maybe it was probably a bird with a BB gun or something. Yeah. but your first game bird with like a shotgun.
Orlyn:Okay. Well I was gonna say my first bird with a BB gun, I was probably six or something. And you can tell that story too. I illegally, I think I illegally shot a quail in my backyard with a red rider. No. And my uncle's a fish game cop, so my dad was telling me he was gonna turn me in and I just, I freaked out. I was so scared. but I did survive. But I think my very first, bird was probably a ring neck pheasant. can't remember really what it was all about. But I remember my first duck story. I was at my grandma's property and we had set up for some ducks. And right first thing in the morning, you know, I had no, no idea what to expect. I was going with, uh, my cousins at the time and it was the youth hunt. So, uh, I ended up shooting a green wing teal. That was my first duck ever. Came right into the, did you jump shoot it or decoy or? It came right into the decoys. Decoy in, I didn't know how to blow a duck call. I think I was 12 and ground pounded that thing. And that was it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. It was pretty fun though.
Tyce:A lot of times, a lot of times for me, you know, an experience like that, I just get hooked. You know, in one of my podcasts, I talked about one of the first ducks I shot and how I just, I don't know, it just really imprinted in my mind and you feel like it was kind of that. Same way for you a little bit or,
Orlyn:yeah, I don't know what it is with hunting in general, um, especially with a dog, but in hunting in general. There's something about it that, I don't know, it might be a primitive instinct or it might be something that was deep rooted within us to provide and to, I don't know, care about the animals around us enough to, I don't know, provide for others and, and eat'em and, you know, use'em and things like that. So,
Tyce:That's, that's an interesting concept.'cause a lot, you know, some people think, oh, if you're a hunter, you just want to kill stuff. And the killing, the aspect is such a little part of hunting, right? Yeah. It's seconds. It's literally seconds. Yeah. It's the people, it's the experiences, it's the things you see in the wild. I mean, you'll be going along and you'll run into a cougar or it's just, The sights and sounds, and I mean, I think people, we were meant to be outside and not just live in cinder block, just live on concrete All day. It's good for our souls to be out in nature, seeing birds, seeing wildlife. just having those experiences. It can be sometimes hard to explain to, you know, someone that doesn't hunt until they go out and actually experience it. And I think most people get it if they spend time outdoors, but there's some people that maybe not, maybe they just, I don't know, just, but I would say most people, it's in us to. Really get out. that's why we have national parks, right? People like to get outdoors and they're flooded with, people. And luckily we live in a state where we got a lot of, uh, public land where we can go out and enjoy, the great outdoors. So
Orlyn:yeah, it's definitely a process too. I feel like the process of getting into and. Hunting birds is like, you're either today like, I don't know what we're gonna do, but we might be hopping over logs, down den fall and through the quakes and up a hill and down a hill and into a ravine, and you just never know. And it's the process of getting the animal or harvesting an animal. That for me, it makes the whole experience 10 times better. And you are like, I worked so hard for this and now I'm being rewarded, or, I've worked so hard and I guess I didn't shape out to what I was gonna get. Um, but that's the whole experience for me is the work that goes into it.
Tyce:Yeah, yeah, for sure. it's interesting. I've talked to people and some friends that are not hunters, and as society, we're just so disconnected from death, right? We eat, steaks, and we eat hamburgers, and we eat pork chops and you know, you got all these different places, but we're disconnected from an animal died. Yeah. To get this meat on your plate or this hamburger. And so I always have personally a hard time. Someone says, oh, I don't like hunting. But then they're sitting, they're eating like steaks and they're meat eaters too, right? And you're like, well, you're just paying someone literally to kill this animal for you. At least when we are hunting, we know, where this animal came from. It's organic, it's healthy, and from anything, you actually have more respect for death in life when you take life, um, instead of paying someone to take life. You know, for you. And so I think, like the Native American stuff, they had a, lot of respect for, the animals that they killed, uh, because they realized like they lived on the same land they did, and they had to survive and everything, and so they called them brothers or whatever, you know? Mm-hmm. At least you hear that. I'm not an in-depth historian on it, but that's how I think most people feel or should feel is a sense of respect for the animal. And that's why we do take pictures and we like to share because they are, they're an awesome, they're beautiful thing. They're, you know, the grouse are so cool, and the ducks and the pheasants, they're all so unique in their patterns and their feathers and the habitat they live in. So I mean, that's. A lot of those same things you're saying are the Same thing for me. Ian, what about you? My first after Mike Dan Bird experience. Yeah.
Ian:Well, so like I said, I didn't grow up in a household that had really any guns. I had to get into it myself, so, I think the first time I ever went actually hunting was with you when I was getting trigger back from training and we went up kind of up behind your house on West Mountain. And, we went on a little chucker hunt. So, uh, I, I do remember that Ian muzzle blasted me very bad. There was, there was some things he was, he's, he was still growing into a shooting experience. There were some chucker and I, I think I still can't hear very good today. There were some things that I needed to learn from the puzzle blast. So there were some things that I needed to learn about hunting that no one had ever taught me. So, sorry about your ears, but thanks for teaching me to not do that again.
Tyce:I had to have a quick chat with, my client on the mountain about, don't do that, about, my ears ring, but the trucker came up and they kind of pitched off the slope and, I got excited. I, king got excited and I was up to the side of him a little bit, and I couldn't hear anything, but, uh, it was, did we get anything that day? I can't remember.
Ian:I think you did. I took some shots, but I was think maybe one or something. Right. I wasn't, I was, I was not a good shot. Like I said, I didn't grow up with guns, so. I had shot guns before, but I've never really like. Target practiced religiously or anything like that. So, oh,
Tyce:Chuck are, are a hard one to cut your teeth on too. They're, they're very quick, extremely fast, steep slopes, uh, you know, just a hard, a hard bird to go after. So, no. Ian, have you shot a grouse yet? Um, I've shot at a grouse. Okay. I say it took you that when we went years ago for some blue grouse,
Ian:we went on a death march, and I saw the grouse as it went by and my gun malfunctioned, so I tried to pull up, I thought I was on target and it just didn't click. So I've upgraded my shotgun, so now I won't have that problem. I had a little eight 70 express. And I just didn't cycle it all the way through, so I wasn't able to get a shot off.
Tyce:Yep. you gotta have good, equipment to be able to knock those birds down, so, yeah.
Ian:But then, yeah, no, so I've actually kind of got into dove hunting right now. I love going hunting those morning doves, just going for a walk. So we kind of have a river by us and a whole bunch of trees. Uh, some of'em are dead or whatever, so the, those doves like to go and hang out on those dead branches. So I like to go for a walk on there. And they're starting, they become my favorite birds to, go and hunt. It's a nice easy walk. At least where we're at. They're fast too. They're still pretty fun to go and shoot. But then, yeah, we go on the duck hunts. Duck hunts are, That's a whole nother animal and that's a whole lot of fun. So it's cool. It's just, it's just a good time all the way around, I guess. Did I ask you what your first bird was? I tr do you remember? I don't recall the first, I think it might've been a pheasant down on, on the training grounds. Okay. So. Yeah, Jeff took a couple of my opportunities. He decided that he wanted the bird more than I did, so I had a bird lined up, ready to go, and Jeff shot it and blew it. Blew it apart. He didn't want me to have that satisfaction. I.
Tyce:Yep. So, so yeah, I think Orland is of the trainers, right? He's the only, you grew up in hunting and then Jeff and Ian didn't grow up in hunting, so it doesn't really matter when you get started. There's a lot of people that start later in their life and there are a lot of resources online these days, so you can get on there and just research a lot. If you do have a mentor, that's gonna be probably your quickest way to getting into hunting, especially behind dogs. But, We have a lot of clients. I'm actually surprised and a decent amount of women clients too, that they get a dog and they want to hunt with their dog and they've never been hunting. So if you're wanting to get into hunting, a good way to do it is, get a dog. Get your dog with a pro trainer. Or do a lot of research on your own. And um, and you can, and if you have the time to train your dog, there'll be a learning curve. But if you go with the pro or train on your own either way, and then in a lot of states there are pheasant preserves or bird farms. You can say it where you can go and buy, birds and you don't even need a hunting license. And you can go out and actually hunt your dog and uh, and have some fun hunting. And then from there, I would recommend Taking a firearm safety course, or hunter's safety, just so you make sure you're handling your, uh, firearm properly is I've guided before on these Fresno preserves. And, sometimes it can get a little, sketchy when you got birds going everywhere and, people are not as experienced. lots of times I would, Hit the deck, and so I wouldn't get shot. Just'cause you don't always know people if you don't hunt with them. you don't always know how they're gonna respond, um, in a, in an exciting moment. So I would have a talk. If you're going hunting with new people, I would definitely make sure you have a talk. With them and just talk about, you know, hey, let's make sure we're never pointing guns at anyone ever. And obviously, a hunt could go south really quick. I had a good friend pass away from a hunting accident. years ago, goose hunting and a kid had a gun pointed in the wrong direction, and he was shot in the side at close yardage and actually died from that experience. I wasn't there fortunately. Um, but we lost a good friend, a good young trainer that was up and coming. And so number one, we wanna always, everyone come home, be safe, and, if that gun's never pointed in a unsafe direction, then everyone will be okay, even if it accidentally goes off or discharges. So anyhow, just a little, word to the wise. But yeah, go out, get a dog. It's so fun to get out in the outdoors. and, returning to the show again, we got Mike Birch. Mike, you awake still? I'm awake. Ty. Good morning everyone. Good morning. Hey, good morning. Good to, good to have you back on the show here. Um, tell us about your grouse hunting experience, Mike, or tell us, do you wanna tell us more about yourself again? Yeah, just quick background, I guess if people haven't listened to the. Podcast you're on, you can always go back and listen to that one.
Mike:I grew up in Las Vegas a long time ago, left after high school and have moved around the country and the world throughout my career, and ended up here in Utah, uh, back in 2006. I've lived here since.
Tyce:So Mike today, tell us what dog you have. You're bringing.
Mike:I brought Ika, my German short hair pointer. So I have three dogs. I have Ika, who's my upland dog, and then I have two I. Pointing labs who, uh, I primarily use for waterfalling, but at least in Grizz case, he also is a great pointing dog
Tyce:Yeah, I was thinking about maybe bringing him, we're a little tight on space sticks. We have, we're all in one truck here, and we have, uh, what do we have? Three short hairs, A setter and a French Britney is the lineup. Today. It'll be fun just to get the pointing dogs out and kind of let'em do their thing. Hopefully there's some birds to be found. Hopefully we don't get rained out in heck. It's actually, she brought some rain gear, so, um, rain gear Haika. Mike is she your first hunting dog?
Mike:She's my first hunting dog. Yep.
Tyce:So Haika has the biggest off switch of every any short hair. Again, she holds that record here, the kennel. She is the most chill short-haired. Do you remember where she came from?
Mike:She likes to relax. I bought her from a. Breeder in South Jordan, Utah. Just a private breeder. Right? Private breeder. I had no idea what I was doing. I went and visited three or four different breeders and I liked this guy and his dog appeared to me to be the kind of dog I wanted in terms of temperament. The parents were, they call him. Did you, could you tell at all? Yeah, yeah. She was calm and, um, he did hunt her a lot, so I knew that. That capability was there. Yeah, so, we brought, uh, I think her name was, the red banded dog, uh, in the litter, and we brought her home and named her Haika. What's Haika named? Haika is German for Henrietta, so not a very pretty name, American name, but it's a German name. We lived in Germany for a little while, so my daughter named her. Is that a common name? Yeah, fairly common for women or something like that? Yeah. Just ika. Ika, yeah. Okay. So that's uh, that's how she got her name?
Tyce:Yeah. She's the only, Ika for sure we've ever trained. So yeah, we like Ika she's a good hunting dog too. She turns on, has really nice point. We had to do a little work to get her to retrieving a little better. She's, she definitely loves hunting and, she, she retrieved generally pretty good on her own. Right? Right. When g, when Griz is loud, his retriever isn't
Mike:right when she's on her own. she'll retrieve if we have griz out hunting with her. She kind of defers dominant. Yeah. And he makes it a point to try and retrieve every bird anyways. Uh, so, but yeah, She's, picked up a lot of birds. We've obviously hunted throughout Utah on a lot of the clubs here. We've been to Kansas, we've been to Nebraska, we've been to South Dakota, so she's gotten around. Has she ever been on grouse? She has, yeah. So in Utah here, you've gotta draw a grouse, uh, a sage grouse tag. So we, drew a tag. two years ago. So she and I headed out to Northwest Utah, actually Grouse Creek. And, uh, spent a couple days figuring out the terrain and where the water was and we figured it out and we found them. And, We bagged our two sage grouse and she did a great job. And how did she, on the scent for not hunting'em, did she seem to pick right up on him or was it She did as soon as we found them, she picked right up on him.
Tyce:Yeah. I think, it seems to me that game birds, they must have a close enough. Scent because I've done that same thing. I've had dogs, I've only hunted pheasants with them, and then I had chucker with them and they just seem to click right over, you know? Yeah, yeah. So it must be something in their scent molecules. That must be, the scent probably all related of, yeah. Enough that it excites'em. So, has she ever been on blue or rough?
Mike:No she hasn't. So I'm kind of interested to see how that goes today. Cool. But, no, she loves to hunt. She's got a great point and, she loves to relax. She's as comfortable on the bed at home as she is, pointing a bird in the field. Yeah.
Tyce:Yeah. Um, well this will be a first for a lot of dogs, even some of us today. Let's see. Jeff shot a grouse Orland. You've never taken a grouse. That surprising me with your big game hunting stuff, he's a big, big game hunter too. So, and then Ian has shot out one. Shot out one. So I like this. for me, it's fun to take people for kind of first time again, generally when we get off. When we're not, uh, shooting birds in training, which we shoot a lot of chucker and pheasants, I think we've, we've gone chucker hunting together with me and the guys, and, but we thought, again, with the doves seeming down a little bit, we thought let's go target some grouse, get our pointing dogs out, and, and have some fun with them. So this is, part one. Of the opening day of 2023, Utah Grouse Hunt. Stay tuned. We will give you a report here when we return, so we'll talk to you soon.