(EP:31) Dog Vests & A Good Goose Hunt!

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Transcript

Tyce: 0:34

Hey everyone. Welcome to the bird dog podcast. My name is Tyce Erickson and I will be your host of the show today and glad you guys could join us. If you haven't listened to us before, a little bit about my background. I've been training bird dogs for the last 18 years professionally for a living. And always loved bird dogs, had dogs ever since I was a little kid and thought they were the coolest thing since sliced bread. And I got my first dog. We always had dogs growing up, but my first personal dog, I got around 10 years of age started training it for hunting. Started, I remember just in the beginning when I started my dog, I'd go down to the river bottoms behind our house and shoot starlings with my BB gun. And then my dog would go pick up my starlings that fall on the thick brush and bring them out to me. And I thought that was brilliant. Pretty dang cool. And it my love just started from there. I've always loved animals and had a passion for taking animals and training them to do cool stuff. And that's where we're at the s I share. I'm on this podcast is just stuff I've learned from experience. So hopefully you can reap some information from me as I talk about things that I'm passionate about and share stories and stuff like that. So again, thanks for listening. There's a little background noise. I am driving, I'm heading up to do some goose hunting with a friend. I'm pretty excited. Got up at three 30 this morning to to get going. I'm driving and I thought, Hey, Let's record maybe a before and after podcast and share with the audience. So I'm excited. Yeah. He, Mike, my buddy, he's he knows how to make this stuff happen. He's super good hunter. He's always sending me pictures of tailgates full of birds and are out in the field or whatever it may be. He's hunting. He puts in the time to scout, find the bird, find where the birds are sitting and put us on the I t we're going to have some success, but if not, that's hunting. And we'll share with you guys how it all went down. So anyhow, that's what I'm doing this morning. Mike has a really nice dog named Cobb. It's a cool name that we trained for him. And Mike did a little bit of, a little bit of training on his own too on it. Some one on one lessons And Cobb's a really nice black lab, and he's a pointing lab, and I'm excited to see him in action on some geese, too. And he's been having a lot of fun with tst, I want to talk about a couple things. I wanted to talk about gear that recently I've had a change of change of heart on. So I'm going to talk about dog vests. So on a recent hunt, I was hunting a young dog and it was the last bit of shooting hours when things usually get good and a lot of birds were pushing through and we were just hammering them. We were out hunting a river that was deep and the water is cold and the reason it wasn't frozen was because it was moving. And I had this young dog and I kept sending out to go pick up birds and picked up two limits of almostk to back. The dog was pretty much in the water, r a good, Oh, probably half hour or so. And she started to struggle started struggling and coming back on the last bird to the point where I think I honestly would have lost her if the water was too deep, but that I couldn't have reached her. Her body, I think, just got so lethargic and so cold that it just, her motor skills started to fail. And it was going under. And I've seen a lot of dogs. I've seen them learn how to swim, thousands of them. And I can tell when a dog's just figuring it out or maybe getting a little bit tired. Tired compared to actually loss of motor skill. And this was a loss of motor skill due to the cold. So I was not running a vest on this dog at this time during this hunt. And after this experience I'm always going to run a vest on a dog when it comes to swimming water. That's cold. So I'm still, I still think running a dog, if it's just running or lunging water, cold water, you're fine. But I've had dogs when I've hunted even colder temperatures than this situation was, but the dogs were able to get out of the water. Usually the retrieves weren't back to back and and the dogs can shake off or roll in the snow and dry themselves off without a vest and all as well. And they're fine. But this was the first time I really had a dog get into a scary situation. So again, this podcast is learning from my mistakes or my experience. I would run a vest on your dog. And do you know what, after thinking about this, what the heck, if it's, below 50 degrees, throw a vest on your dog, take a hunt. When you take a hunt, because you know what, it comes down to it. I've always told people run a vest. If there's ice or there's debris that may, Puncture, that could technically hurt the dog. And that being said, I think if you wear a vest, it just it's not gonna hurt the dog. Obvious. Obviously, if you have a good fitting vest, it's not gonna be a problem for the dog, and it's gonna help'em be a little warmer and a little more buoyant. And I think this dog, if I had the right vest on it, which now I run a vest on her, I think if I had a vest, she would've had better buoyancy and potentially could have stayed warmer, is my thought. Obviously, hindsight's everything, you never know for sure. Would she have gotten exhausted or, still been cold with a vest on? Maybe. But that being said, I think it's better to air on the. the safe side and throw a vest on your dog. So there are lots of brands out there for vest. I've had people had a client asked me the other day, which one did they Tangle Fre s always supported us good. So I'm going to push people towards their products. They make a great product and check out Tangle Free. They make a good vest and any of the other pretty much major players in the industry make a dog vest. They're fairly simple neoprene generally of some sort. And they do have some adjustable ones. that I think can be a good idea. If your dog has a weird shape or something like that to it and you need to adjust it or for weight gain or weight loss, you can snug that best up onto the dog. Obviously if you're using Velcro, Velcro seems to get, if it gets debris or other stuff in it sometimes over time it can lose its, tackiness. And so that being said, you just have to try them out. Worst case scenario, I guess if you run one, if you run one that's adjustable and has Velcro and wears out, you just have to buy a new one over time. Usually they're not too pricey, but if you guys have a vest that you're in love with and you think it's the best, send us your DM us on Instagram at the bird dog podcast or Utah bird dog training and let us know your opinions on the best that you have. Middle, a mid podcast plug here. Just when I just mentioned my training name, Utah bird dog training, just thought something I want to share with you guys. If you guys are looking for anyone's looking for a really nice hunting dog We just had a nice litter of pointing labs on the ground. And a pointing lab is a lab, it's a purebred lab, it's just a genetic strain that they basically found that point in the upland field. So if you think having a lab to point your pheasants for a minute. Before they flush or, if you develop the point, some of them will hold it naturally longer than others. Some will, without any development, hold it for three to ten seconds and then they'll flush after that. But if you wo train them, they'll flush. Like any other pointing breed and you can have them hold it, really as, as long as you want. But anyhow, when you run them as a retriever, when it comes to hunting waterfowl, they're going to act exactly the same as any other retriever. And yeah. So if you're looking, we have one chocolate male available. They were born December 27th. Ome out of a proven hunt test and field trial lines. These dogs are going to be stompers. They're going to be awesome. So we also happen to have a few started dogs that are non pointing labs. They have two yellow males and a black male available to that are turnkey ready to go into new hunting homes. So if you have any buddies that are looking for a started or slash finished dog look us up for the started dogs tab at our website, utah bird dog training. com and go from there. And if you're if you're in love with the redheads, you can also check out our field bred golden retrievers website and follow us on Instagram. My wife, Rachel, she leads out on that and posts. Instagram and on the website. And so if you're looking for an awesome golden retriever for hunting, you can go ahead and check that out. Lately we've had a few hunts where we've brought on Kate with a slick fork films. I think it's the name of her company. Sorry, Kate, if I'm getting that wrong, but she's come and done some professional filming for us. That has been pretty dang fun and pretty dang awesome to really capture the dogs and capture my love of the animals where they really slow the film down and you can see the movement of the dog and the action and she's been extremely talented so that's been fun to have her come along and film the dogs as we hunt them and do the things, that we love. To is going to be, part one of this podcast. I'm just getting here soon to meet up with Mike for our morning goose hunt. So we'll let you, we'll let you know how it how it shakes out. Hopefully we put a bunch of big old Canadians on the ground and their feet are hanging down in the decoys. As they when we come up, when we pull the trigger. So anyhow, if you've been on the fence about a vest, I was not, I never was anti vests ever. I just was eh, I don't know if I'm a huge believer of'em, and really do they make the dog that much? Yes, there is some buoyancy. Do they need it? There are some dogs when they run them, they act a little weird or uncomfortable in them. But I would definitely err on the safe side and get yourself the vest, a vest for your dog. If you're going to be hunting, especially swimming cold and t40 degree temperature of water and below. Hey folks, stay tuned. Thanks for listening and we'll see you in the second half.

13:51

Hey everyone, welcome to part two of the bird dog podcast. And just following up on how the goose hunt went. I meant to record it on my way back, but I had to take some phone calls and got busy and. didn't get part two done. It's now a couple of days later and just wanted to give you an overview of how the goose hunt went and how the spread was and everything like that. So maybe you guys can utilize some of that. into your it was ome. Make a long story short, we shot a two man limit in about 45 minutes. So it was pretty pretty dialed in. I didn't really expect much less from my buddy, Mike, that he really he had watched the birds, saw exactly where they were landing. Ou guys are new to field hunting or any waterfowl hunting in general, the best thing to. Help yourself be successful as scout, scout the day before find out where the birds are sitting. I call it the X, find where the X is, where they want to be. And then if you can get access to that spot and set your decoys up there, you really don't even have to do much calling. We did very little calling on this hunt. Ow it was set up. There was a, an old corn field that they had tilled under and they had winter wheat growing in there. And those birds were coming in and eating the winter wheat. But it was a pretty barren field. So we did a hunted the edge of the field. There were some, can't remember the name of the brush, the woody material, but it basically looks like tumbleweeds right on the edge of the field. There's a mound and some of these weeds had grown up over it. And so we. Basically put our layout blinds right against that mound. If you don't know what a layout blind is, you can always check those out, but they're basically a blind you lay into and you put some flaps over you and you brush them in hook brush and siren and material. So it just looks like you blend into the field and We put those up and set up and got really brushed in really well. Plus Mike's dog, he has a black lab. We trained for him. His name is Cobb, had his dog blind set up there too. and Got him all settled in and we were ready to go. The first group showed up about seventh what was it? 730 I think around there came a little earlier than he expected or 745 somewhere around there. Surprised us coming in. We were just getting settled in when they came and they just came perfect right into the decoys. Should have gone three for three on them. I felt like I was hitting the two really good, but we ended up taking one bird each out of that group. So we had two down. And then after that, most of them that came in were feet down. They'd come, either come straight in and just land right there. You know in the decoys or they'd come down circle make one pass get lower and then Come wing locked right into the decoys. So he's really good at not pressuring his land. We were on private property So he's been watching these birds. They're not getting pressured not getting a lot of hunting So that's just the way birds act when they're not getting a lot of pressure if they're comfortable there and they played really well. It was a little bit cloudy. So that was good We didn't have the sun in the sky hitting us in the face. We had a North wind and so they were just soaking floating right down into the wind. I was shooting three inch double BB. Mike was shooting some, I think it was heavy shot, 20 gauge, three inch, 20 gauge, two shot or something like that. And yeah, we ended up taking down the geese and everything worked out really smooth. Cobb did well on the retrieves. He gets pretty excited. He's wanting to break a little bit. So I was working with Mike on some ways to correct his dog for breaking and trying to help steady him up. He does, Mike does a lot of solo hunting, so it's hard cause he's shooting and trying to keep the dog in line and all, all together at the same time. So how our spread was set up. He had again, we're on the edge of the field. There was a dirt road and then the field and we're set up the decoys are, I think, 25 yards out and they were set. If you're looking at them, they were set in a line parallel to us. And he had two bunched up kind of family groups. and the right side and in the center, almost a triangle, not heavy triangle, but just more in the center. There was three or four decoys and then he landed, he put two that looked like they just landed and they were walking, walking into the spread. D one group that did land right on the outside of the spread, still within range. I think we knocked two birds down out of that group. And then, but the other ones were coming right down. Basically right on, down on top of the decoys and around the decoys. And presenting really nice solid shots where we were hitting the birds real hard when they came down. Overall, it was huntieese are fun cause they're just so big and they're vocal. And I think that's the fun thing about geese that we all enjoy is just their sheer size. And I'm always amazed when I'm hunting them, how fast they can get away when you start shooting at them. Those wings, how fast they can carry such a big bird. out of the area, so No bands on the birds Just a two man limit no bands clean legs, so we're hoping we could get some bands But there are good sized birds, so it's fun to get some big ones and then Yeah, that was pretty much it I did make it out yesterday afternoon up north, northern Utah, and did an afternoon evening hunt, broke some ice to get into a spot where there were some birds hanging out nearby. And we set up and it was a complete bust. So we didn't even fire a I waetty surprised there was no wind yesterday. We're hunting ducks this time and there was just nothing flying even in the Late afternoon evening just nothing flying and I don't it's been an interesting I would say the last couple weeks two three weeks i've been getting reports from clients that they're just some people are doing pretty good there's obviously always birds around and you can get some here and there and some people do pretty good, but seems like overall i'd say I don't know if the migrations stopped or what, but it seemed like guys were doing really well from the opener until about the first week in December. And then those last two, three weeks of December, we had this nicer weather and migration just seems to have stopped and not really poured in heavy. So I'd be curious if you guys are what your reports are. Let me know how your hunting has been. And if you think it's been a good year, your average year. Or you've seen what just me talking to people and I've seen it seemed like it was pretty good early on, which kind of surprised me because the weather was Still pretty nice, but guys seem to still be shooting a decent amount of birds and it almost just felt like it's turned off and just a little stagnant right now. In Utah we have about a week left or so for what we call our northern zone, a week and a half. And then the southern zone I think goes towards the end of the month and then our geese don't quote me on these dates goes to usually around the first part of February. So hopefully the geese will show up This area we had to drive a decent amount of distance to get to the spot where we're hunting the geese And there were some geese starting to show up there. So I think Depending where you're at Guys, the geese are starting to show up, but they definitely haven't shown up here close to my house Like I usually start seeing them this time of year. So Anyhow, exciting time of year hunts are starting to end which is always sad But also as a restart to getting the dogs out for training getting ready for hunt tests if you're not into hunt tests, check out some of the local clubs like Wasatch Retriever Club or Weaver Retriever Club. Join some of those clubs and they'll help you, prepare for hunt tests and you can meet up and meet some great people that are good trainers or good handlers and are looking for a group to train with. So check them out on, I think on Facebook is where you can find them probably the easiest. And I think that's going to be about it for the show. Just want to again, give a recap on the goose hunt. It was about as good as it could get. They came just in perfect into the wind. ate up the decoys, birds down. And one thing we did, and it's smart to do, especially if you're trying to keep the birds coming to field, we shot the birds, got a couple of pictures and then we hurried and boogied out of there. We didn't want we wanted the other birds to come in, land, not realize anything has happened, keep telling their buddies that everything's all good. and then go from there. You want to keep, if you hang out there and the birds are coming and the decoys are just sitting out and you're taking your time getting pictures, those birds are going to know that something's up and it'll be a little harder to hunt that field or area that you're hunting sooner. So just remember to get your birds, get out of there real quick, maybe even take your birds to another spot, get some pictures. And then I'll let those other birds come in and roost or feed or whatever and you'll be able to continue to milk that field for you know a little bit longer so anyhow Hope everyone has a great day today saturday. You got to go ahead and get a bunch of other stuff done today So i'm going to wrap this one up, but thanks for listening To us if you guys are looking for any cool products check out corinda dog beds they're one of the best beds around that we've used for indestructibility. They're pretty dang tough. Are they destructible? Yes, anything can be destroyed, but they're the best one we have seen on the market. It's, your dog's gonna have to be a serious chewer. And if anything did happen to the bed, super easy to place, replace. My legs have always held up. I get the anodized aluminum. And, the only thing, occasionally the bed part over time, I'm just talking a year or two. And I'm using ours every day, really hard dogs on them. You may get one of these, if you have a heavy digger that maybe it'll slowly wear a hole through one. and you just grab a replacement and slide it in. You're going to be good for another couple of years. I've used some other ones or I put them out there and the next night when I go out to my kennel, the, they're all just completely destroyed, ripped apart and in shreds. So these are the best ones that I have seen. So go ahead and check them out. If you use the link under our show notes that helps us. So go ahead and click on that and go through there and check out and buy yourself a bed. And that'll help us out. Eciate you guys listening. Hopefully everyone's season's been a good one that you've gotten out enough. And if not, go ahead and get it, schedule some time to get out and get your dog out with you before it ends here. And upland seasons around this area still, a lot of them will not some of them will go till, mid February still. So there's still some time to get out. And if you're hunting some of the hunting preserves. For pheasants a lot of those go here in utah around towards the end of march So thanks for listening everyone and have a great day and we'll see you in the next show