Just Like Old Times

The problem with owning more than one dog is getting them equal time in the woods. I've spend the last several hunting seasons giving Emma most of the hunting time trying to get her experience at the expense of my other two setters Copper and Hattie. I could take a couple out at a time but with my hearing loss and the fact that I enjoy hunting with one dog at a time somebody is always sitting at home while I hunt someone else. Today I had a couple of hours to hunt so I took Hattie to a local woodcock covert in the hopes that a couple would be home. Hattie was my first setter and my yardstick to measure my other dogs, so far no one has measured up to her. At 9 years old age she has a hearing loss that makes it some what difficult to keep track of her in some covers. Today she handled like a champ and it felt like old times with her.
I've hunted this covert for 15 years or more and it still produces birds.

A wet but happy Hattie taking a little break.

The first woodcock she pointed left me with two empty shells to show for the effort, but I was better on her second point and Olga and I were "in step" on this bird. I bumped a third bird on the way out of the cover and so ended a nice morning hunt.
Later in the afternoon I took Emma for a run in a nice looking cover. An old field lying in a steep hollow with patches of aspen.

She hunted her heart out but all she found was a small pond to cool off it.

The weather forecast is warm and windy tomorrow, but hope to get out with Copper. First I have to get a check in the mail for another gun. Yes another hammergun, a 16 ga, of course, with 30 inch damascus barrels, 6 lbs. 3 ozs. , made in the 1880's in Liege Belgium one of the oldest centers of gunsmithing in the world. You'll get to meet her as soon as she arrives :).