In this episode we talk about our opening day youth waterfowl hunt here in Utah. We also take a dog out on it's first hunt and let you know how that goes. We also discuss tips and things to do to help you dog be successful on it's first hunt. Enjoy and good hunting! Contact us at thebirddogpodcast@gmail.com. You can also follow us and DM us at thebirddogpodcast on instagram. If your looking for a new hunting golden retriever look us up on the web at www.fieldbredgoldenretrievers.com and follow us with the same name on Instagram. If you are looking for a new Gunner kennel reach out to us for help on getting any of their products as they are a new partner of ours. You can see their products too on the web at www.gunner.com. Thanks everyone!
In this episode we talk about our opening day youth waterfowl hunt here in Utah. We also take a dog out on it's first hunt and let you know how that goes. We also discuss tips and things to do to help you dog be successful on it's first hunt. Enjoy and good hunting! Contact us at thebirddogpodcast@gmail.com. You can also follow us and DM us at thebirddogpodcast on instagram. If your looking for a new hunting golden retriever look us up on the web at www.fieldbredgoldenretrievers.com and follow us with the same name on Instagram. If you are looking for a new Gunner kennel reach out to us for help on getting any of their products as they are a new partner of ours. You can see their products too on the web at www.gunner.com. Thanks everyone!
Hey everyone. Welcome to the bird dog podcast. Glad to have you with us here today and, uh, excited for this show. Hopefully we can talk about some things that will help you out with your dog and with your upcoming hunts. This should be a fun show and, uh, excited to, be here with you guys and take a minute and talk about some important things. It'll hopefully help you guys out in your training and also here in your upcoming hunts, like I just said. So this past Saturday, we had our youth waterfowl hunt here in Utah, and, I was able to take my, boy out. my oldest son, his name is crew. And, he was on the podcast a while ago, but we went out on the. Youth hunt and spent some time together and he also invited his friend Wyatt to come out on the hunt with us. It was his first duck hunt ever. Uh, his dad came along to help out and just hang out and we had a fun time. So we'll kind of dive into how that hunt went. So, let's just actually start off with that. So, we went just here in Utah, went close here to my home and, the hunt was good. I felt like bird numbers and I had another client and friend that was out hunting in a similar area and he said. Um, he felt like bird numbers were less than they have been in previous years. There were still plenty of ducks. I think we ended up with a couple of coots, six ducks and one goose between the two boys and we hunted till probably, you know, shooting hours started at 6 45 and we ended about 10, 10 30 in the morning. And, there were a lot of birds flying around at first light. It was just fun to get out and if you guys have hunted opening day I'm sure many of you have there's just ducks Going everywhere. They don't know what's going on. It's the first hunt of the year. There's young birds There's obviously the birds haven't been hunted and so it's just kind of chaos which kind of makes it fun too Because there's a lot of birds in the sky Uh, they didn't really decoy real well. Um, we had a couple coming to the decoys. Most of it was just past shooting birds trying to find a safe spot. And, talking to my other friend that was out there, they kind of had the same experience. Birds weren't really settling in. He had a friend that... Hunted in the evening and he said the birds actually settled down and started coming in pretty good and decoying real nice for him But I think it was just part of that morning hunt just again the chaos the birds going everywhere that they just did not want to decoy real well, so Lots of water this year. It's fun to actually get the boat in last couple years Haven't really been able to utilize the boat And so that was fun to be able to get in there and use the boat. So yeah, it was fun to get the boat out and get into some water. We were hunting them probably a foot and a half to two feet of water. I'd pretty scouted it out and found some areas where the birds were hanging. And we went back and set up close to that area and, and it seemed to help. So it's one thing if you're new to duck hunting, uh, you can just go out in the marsh and set up and hopefully. Have some birds come by but if you want to be real successful You're going to want to get out Ideally the day before morning before evening before and find out where the birds are hanging out So you can go into a spot if you jump up a bunch of birds Hurry and set up real quick. That would be your next best thing hurry and set up Don't shoot the birds to scare them off, but just kind of walk in there They fly up set up your decoys real quick real quick. And then a lot of times those birds will trickle back To those decoys and you'll get shots at them instead of just trying to jump, shoot them, blow them all out of there, really scared them. They don't want to come back. And then, but if you hurry and set up, lots of times they'll trickle back and you can have some good shoots that way, or again, scout and find out where the birds are hanging out. And then set up in that same area and you should have a good hunt. So, in that regards, I went out a week or so ago and on this hunt, I had a young dog with me. His name is Boss. He's a golden retriever male of mine that's coming up on two years of age. And last year was his first hunting season. I didn't hunt him a whole lot. I just, he wasn't handling quite good enough. And I did a little bit of jump shooting with him, had one. Successful jump shoot where I think we shot one bird came up, he saw it go down, he jumped in, he grabbed it, was all excited about it, and this was his first real decoying hunt out of a boat. So, I wanted to prepare him for that. so I took him out about 4 or 5 days earlier scouting and also wanted to work him out of the boat and that's what I did. I took four or five dogs with me, we went out on the boat and we worked them off, the pods on the back where I like my dogs to sit and worked them off the boat, took out a few decoys through some bumpers, did a little bit of shooting and just basically worked them in the pretty much not the exact spot we're going to hunt, but in the marsh on the boat. in those same areas that we were going to be hunting in just a few days. And that pays a big dividend in there. So if you do hunt out of a boat and you want to be successful with your dog, that's something I definitely recommend is going out, you know, a week before, two weeks before, multiple times if possible. And take your dog out into the marsh into those areas or the terrain that you're going to be hunting. And especially if you're working off a boat and work them off the boat, get them comfortable jumping off it, get them comfortable playing the game off the boat. And so when you go in that morning on opening day, the dog already knows what's going on. The biggest problems I see is when a dog goes home from training and they plan on hunting on a boat and we didn't say we didn't do any boat work on the dog. Generally we don't unless people request it. That's kind of an extra thing that we do as an option, but we generally don't cause not everyone has a boat, But if you do have a boat, you want to again, take the dog out and work them off it. And that's going to help opening morning. You can imagine if you're a dog, you've never been on a boat. The engine's loud. You can't see anything. There's a bunch of people in the boat. All of a sudden it's barely starting to get light gunfires going off like crazy that can really throw a dog off. So in training, a lot of things are more visual. The dog can see what's going on. They hear the guy out there, they throw the bird or the bird comes out from the trees and It's more obviously controlled in a training situation. So when you're trying to bridge that gap between training and a real hunt, there's just things you can't do, but you want to obviously prepare them the best you can. But one of those things will be again, take him out on the boat, get him in the marsh in that area, put some decoys out and the dog should just, Oh yeah, I did this just a couple of days ago. And boom, they're off to the races and you're going to have a good, successful hunt. I did that with my dog boss and he had a great hunt. First bird came in was a goose came across the top. my son, he shot it down, fell down. He had never been on a goose. I was curious kind of how that would go, but he's a pretty aggressive retriever. So I sent him on it. Bird was still crippled and he tackled down that goose, retrieved it right in, brought it in the hand, no problem. Just treat it like it was a duck. And that was a beautiful thing. Um, the other ducks who ended up shooting down, I had to run blind retrieves and handle them on a couple of those cause they just hit in different areas in the marsh from the boat where he could not locate them or he could not mark them and see them go down. So I handled them. Um, no big deal when he jumped up on the boat that morning. No issues because he'd just been on the boat, had a positive experience where he could see everything in the daylight and everything went great. So again, prepare them and that's going to really help you out. Now, let's say you don't hunt out of a boat, but you hunt in the marsh, you just walk into the marsh and You're hunting that way. Again, take him in and take your dog in him or her and prepare her for that hunt. So I would recommend if you hunt off a stand, take the stand in, set up some decoys in a little pocket, throw some bumpers, maybe just take some docking dead fowls out there, throw a bumper, shoot some shots, either at the 209 or some blanks or, um. If you want to take some shotgun shells out, shoot some as long as your area, you can do that. Do some shooting, just prepare them for that. And it doesn't need to be a long session, just maybe, you know, 20 minutes, half hour or so. And when you go back out, you're going to have a good time. one thing I would recommend if you have a dog, And you're standing out in the marsh, get that dog up on something where it can get out of the water. So, I would recommend, um, a hunting stand of some sort if you're in standing water. If a dog's standing in water up to its back or midway up its body, it's just sitting there for hours and hours. It's gonna get really cold, it's gonna want to get more lethargic. And just going to be more uncomfortable, for that dog. And it's probably not going to want to retrieve as much. If you do that, so Mo Marsh makes a stand, it's called the. Final stand, I believe. And it's a great little stand folds up the legs telescope out. So you can get that stand and put it. So the water is right below the stand and the water drains through the stand into the lakes. The dog can jump up, get out of the water in between her trees, hang out. It's a little bit elevated so the dog can see, and you're going to have a more of a positive experience with that. Also something to consider is water temperature. the last time you worked your dog was in the summertime and it was super warm and then fall starts hitting and you don't go hunting until November and the water temperatures have changed. That can be a shock for the dog. It can be colder, just like a little kid jumping into a swimming pool in the summer feels great, but also then jumping in the cold water in the fall, it can be a little overwhelming. So if, again, if you can take your dog out to the marsh and set up those kind of practice hunts, or even get them in the water, you know, a few days before, see how the dog responds, get them comfortable with the cold water, the more you can kind of just warm them up. To what you're going to be doing the hunting instead of that big time gap where you don't do anything. And then you go out and all of a sudden you get them in the marsh and there's ice in the water. They're going to hesitate to go again. It could be just too overwhelming. So think about water temperatures. And, prepare them for that. And that'll help. Next thing you want to talk about to have a successful hunt on your dog's first hunt, would be, the number of guns that you have. Um, sometimes as we go out, we like to hunt with friends and family and. In training us, we usually only have one or two guns going off. And so it's hard to duplicate four or five, six guns going off at the same time. And so you want to prepare them for that. So if you're going to hunt with that many people don't go in. Early hours, dog can't see anything again, set up and sick and barely again, you know, at first light, it's not very light. Birds are flying around and guns, guns are just going off like crazy. That can, you can have a dog that is not gun shy. And that is just so overwhelming that they get nervous about those gun issues or cause. So if you're going to have a lot of shooters again, prepare them, take them to the marsh, you know, take that dog out into a field, have two, three, four, your buddies come throw a bumper out there. Boom, boom, boom. Everyone unload their guns, just like they may happen in the marsh and send that dog out on some retrieves. And prepare them for that amount of gunfire. don't go from one or two guns to a huge group. Same thing if you're up on game hunting, sometimes we'll get in big lines, we'll take, a dog out with a work group or something like that to a hunting club. And maybe there's 10, 12, 15 people and a pheasant comes up and 10 guns go off unloading three rounds each, 30 something rounds go off and under. a minute or two time or less, about a minute time. John, a bird's going to fly pretty fast. And that can cause gun issues. So be really prepared for the guns, prep your dog for that. Make sure they're good. Don't wait till they come home from training or you shot over them a long time ago, and then take out that many guns again, some dogs are going to be okay, and they can bridge that gap and they're going to be fine. But if you want to always err on the safe side and try to really prepare them and help them be successful. Be patient with your dog would be the next thing I would say. Again, it's very overwhelming for your dog. If you shoot a bird down and the dog does not immediately fly out of the boat like you're hoping or excited, get out of the boat. Hopefully not in a spot where it's not too deep or you can get out and wait and get out there at the dog and you need to point them or handle them or just Have them search and pick up the bird and enjoy those small wins. I'm sure sometimes dogs go home from training and they go out on their first hunt and it's overwhelming and owners can get frustrated because, when we put a lot of time, they put a lot of money into them and maybe it doesn't end up flawless. But if you can just stick with it, be patient, and try to help that dog be successful, put the dog in a spot. Either on the stand or the boat where it can actually see the birds come in and have a good visual and shoot the bird down and then see the bird hit the water or come down in front of them. That's really going to help a dog to bring the training and the hunts together too, to be able to visualize things. So, if your dog's tucked back up into the boat, it can't see anything, all this gunfire is going off, that's going to be overwhelming for the dog. So either... You know, get that dog in an area again, where it can see, and that's going to help you help that dog kind of work through the transition from training to hunting. decoys is another thing I wanted to talk about. Um, in training, we use decoys almost every day. Once they reach a certain point in training, but everyone's decoy spread is different. Some people may use a jerk rig, some may use two or three mojos, some may use one mojo, some may use a splash of some sort. So if your dog has not seen those kind of decoys, And all of a sudden, at first light, they see this thing flipping around out there, a mojo, a dog may run out there and hit the mojo with its nose and all of a sudden get nervous or knock it over or try to retrieve your decoys or whatever it may be. So again, take your spread out. Especially some of the ones that have movement to them, set them up, you don't have to put a ton of decoys, you can put as many as you want out, the more it's just like your natural spread the better, throw a bumper past the decoys, throw a bumper into the decoys, and get that dog working, retrieving that bumper, and just again, Preparing them for the hunts. I know these things to me seem like common sense, but and maybe they are Um, but just dealing with this on a day to day basis and training these dogs Just these little things is going to pay off for you. So when i'm talking about this I'm talking about dogs that are trained either by us or you know more by the clients Um, or client trained by you guys. But if you have your personal dogs again, and you're doing your self training, prepare them for these things, prepare for the hunt. I always tell people when you're training the dog train for how you hunt. So if you're going to be hunting out of layout blinds and you're the dog's going to be in a blind in the ground, get the dog working out of those things. Get them use that, get them to retrieve out of them. If you just don't prepare them at all. And then all of a sudden you go out. Again, opening day are going to hunt and now they're hunting out of a field blind and they have not hunted out of them or not been into them. It's going to be a big step. Some dogs can pull it off, but most of the time it's going to be more frustrating because you're essentially training the dog in the field, um, instead of just enjoying the hunt and reinforcing things in the field and there's a difference there. If you do run any problems, don't get frustrated, call your trainer, let them know, Hey, I ran in this situation. If you don't think you know how to resolve it, have them help you out, walk you through it, get your confidence back and, keep moving forward. But again, be patient with your dog and really have fun with it and enjoy it. I've seen some dogs that from their first hunt, just to their third hunt, they'll just make these huge jumps because the next time you go out, okay. I've been out on the boat a couple of times. I've had a successful hunt. I saw a bird come down and next time. Okay. Now they're looking for birds. Third hunt. They're really starting to look fourth hunt. And that first season is really a learning season, but again, they can make jumps pretty quick if you have some successful hunts. Successful isn't necessarily shooting a lot of birds over the dog that definitely helps when it comes to a dog that can mark and kind of learning the game to watch the sky and everything, but a successful hunt and just them having confidence and coming out of the marsh or coming out of the upland field, just like, yeah, that wasn't a big deal. I knew exactly what I was doing. I remembered all this stuff from training and you were just out there reinforcing, getting the dog a little more real life experience and having a fun time. Hopefully those tips can help you guys out when it comes to your first hunt with your dog and, um, and help you have some success. Um, they're not that hard to do, but they're, again, they're going to pay off. You're going to be rewarded for that little extra work that you put in. Pull some time off work. Some from the family. If you are going to go out and hunt that dog and do those things and your hunt will go a lot smoother. So another thing I want to talk about was in Utah, a lot of people may not know, but they have a trial, a hunting trial program. And this is what our neighbor's boy came and did with us. He's working on finishing his hunter safety. He does not have it yet. Um, but believe it or not, you can still hunt in Utah. For three years on the trial program. If you are out with someone that has their hunter safety, that is over 21 years of age. So the easiest way to do it is to go onto the wildlife. utah. gov. I believe is the website. For the fish and game, in the search code, put in, trial hunter education program, something along those lines, and it'll pull up. And you, what you do is you take a quiz and once you, it's an eight question quiz on gun handling and safety and simple things like that. And once you pass that quiz, you will get a, certificate number. And then it also is logged into the system that you have taken that once you've taken that quiz, you can actually log into the fishing game wildlife, log into their back office and then it'll open up. So you can actually buy a hunting license, even though you do not have a hunter safety. So, uh, it's so kids. Or adults, as for adults also can try out hunting and go with someone that has their hunter education already. So as many of you know, it can be hard to get into hunting unless someone mentors you or shows you what's going on. There's a lot of rules when it comes to hunting. And it's your responsibility to know those rules. And that can be overwhelming. I know some old timers that just have stopped hunting altogether just because of so many rules, they can't keep track of them. So if you have someone that. Has hunted for years or knows the rules or you feel confident, and they can again, mentor you. And you can learn, like our friends that went out with us, they didn't know what licenses to get. They didn't know you had to shoot, still shot. They didn't know you had to have a plug in your gun. They didn't know you had to have a HIP number, you know, harvest information program number and go on and do that before. Um, They obviously didn't know you need waiters and those different things, but that's just kind of part of the law things are, Hey. You can only shoot two, hen mallards and you can only shoot these species and these species you can't and you can only shoot one of these, a pintail and whatnot and so, a redhead, a scop, there's a lot of rules and people that don't, one, they might not know the duck species if they've never hunted and you can be in trouble if you, break those laws. And so it is important to mentor others and show them and teach them. And so I think it's a really cool program, to be able to take others out, take them hunting. I think you can hunt general season deer and elk on the mentor program, but none of the limited entry tags you can do, but you can obviously do birds. I think Turkey too. But again, just read up on the handbook. Make sure that that's all correct. When you do mentor, you know, obviously teach gun control and gun safety, and just start teaching them the laws, and how to do things, and how to be safe, and how to have a good, fun, positive experience, and that's what we did with my son's friend. He came out, we had a great experience, he's like, I want to go again, that was awesome, and that's what it's all about, is having fun, having a positive experience, And, that'll get more people out into the field. And it's really our responsibility, something we love so much, to show others why we love it. And that not only puts more money into the system, but it helps protect wildlife as more people are interested and going to vote for laws that do protect wildlife and help those things if they understand it and love it. That's, all I can really think of right now off the top of my head that I wanted to talk about when it comes to the youth waterfowl hunt, preparing your dogs for, their first hunt and upcoming hunts and also that, Utah trial program. Uh, I think other states may have similar things, maybe not. So just double check with the laws of your state. Obviously the best thing to do is go through the hunter safety program. Cause I think the trial program, I believe is for three years. If you don't get your hunter safety after, after that, you can't. But the best thing, if you have your hunter safety, you can obviously go out by yourself. And then you can obviously try, mentor, someone else. if you guys have any other questions, please reach out. it's fun to sit down and do these podcasts and share some information and knowledge that I have with you. Uh, if you want, follow us on. Instagram at the bird dog podcast. we'll post some pictures and videos on there, about each podcast. if you're interested, you can follow our training. Instagram is Utah bird dog training is our Instagram., Paige and also we we breed, golden retrievers and labs. So if you're looking for a good pup, you can check out our website. It's filled bread golden retrievers.com. My wife manages that. And then we also have filled bread, golden retrievers on Instagram and she. Post all the fun pictures and videos of the puppies that we have going home and people sending in pictures and updates and stuff like that. So if you're looking for a really nice hunting golden retriever out of field lines, check that out, FieldBredGoldenRetrievers. com You can also email us. the bird dog podcast at gmail. com and we'll try to answer any questions and stuff like that, that you have. Also, we've recently partnered up with gunner kennels. I believe they're the best dog crate out on the market. So if you're interested in getting a gunner kennel, we can help you out with that and,, give us a call. And, we can get you one on the way. appreciate you guys. Hope you have a great day. the hunts are upon us. It's a great time of year to get those dogs out. All those long hours that you've put into your dog and get them out in the marsh or get them out in the upland field and really see them in action. So stay safe, have fun, and we'll see you guys on the next show.