My father trained hunting dogs all my life. When I was born, he did not have enough cash to pay the doctor for attending my birth. The doctor asked for two of Dad’s coon hunting dogs. Dad said that was too much, so the doctor goes back to town and Dad sells one dog to pay for my birth.

Later, Dad switched from training coon hounds to quail bird dogs. Dad and his hunting buddies hunted quail almost every day if the weather permitted. The bird dogs were as enthusiastic as he was about hunting quail. If he or I walked out of the house with a gun, it didn’t matter what kind of gun, they would get very excited and run around the house twice and then out to our pickup. They would jump into the bed of the pickup, all before we made the trip from the house to the truck!
To some degree, quail dogs would obey hand or whistle signals. One dog, Joe, thought he knew more about where to find a covey of quail than anyone else. He would range far afield searching for a trace of a covey.
Now, if Sid found a covey closer in, Joe would come racing in to take the lead of the point. Sid would then be left to honor Joe’s point, even though he had been the first to discover the covey.

As for as training, we would tie a quail wing to the line of a fishing rod and reel. Then toss the wing out and encourage the puppy to run and grab the wing and bring it back to us. The hardest chore was getting them used to the report of a gun. During the off season, shooting a .22 was good practice. By the time the next season rolled around, they would be ready to observe and follow the lead of older, more experienced dogs.

Once they realized gun reports meant they were doing their job. They might not automatically go and bring a dead bird back, but it didn’t take long for them to retrieve fallen birds.

Eventually, experienced bird dogs became as knowledgeable to find and retrieve dead birds as their owners. There’s no question these experienced dogs would be as peeved at their hunters’ missing shots, as the owner himself. This was life’s ambition, so the dog expected his owner to do their jobs correctly.

One time, two of my uncles were going quail hunting on an oil lease one of my uncles managed. When they got to the locked gate, they could see several coveys of quail in the middle of the sandy road ahead. Now, quail love to take sand baths. Their bird dogs, who immediately jumped out of the truck and went down the road and to point immediately. Well both uncles loaded their shotguns but missed every shot!

One of the dogs looked back in disgust and then ran on down this road. He was gone about 10 minutes, and then returned with a quail in his mouth! He came up near the uncle who owned him but would not come close to my uncle and drop the bird. He remained at some distance and acted as if he was showing my uncles his bird, and making sure they understood what the objective of this hunt was all about.

There’s no question that these dogs live for the opportunity to join hunters in finding, pointing, and retrieving quail that the hunter successfully shoots. An active bird dog can run miles in one day. We would have to put little leather or rubber boots on our dogs to keep them from hunting so hard they would cripple themselves because their feet would become bloody!
I had a friend who Lived in Kingsville and had a plastic injection molding business. He had called on Walmart in Arkansas and after Mr. Sam Walton learned of his affinity for hunting quail, Sam came over to hunt quail with my friend.
Now my friend did not take quail hunting lightly, he had his pickup rigged with several cells where he could take multiple bird dogs and allow each one to a set amount of time, before exchanging him for a fresh dog. There was also adequate water and food, so the dogs were well treated. The hunter is only one part of the successful quail hunt, the dogs are equally important for a successful hunt. After taking Mr. Sam on a successful hunt on the King Ranch, my friend’s plastic injection business began to get orders from Walmart! Just Sayin…RJS

JD I use to fish for cats n panfish.
For eating of course.
Got a bass one trip thought I'd try it.

Got a bone stuck in roof of my mouth.
Never ate another bass

Now I target bass but it's all C&R.
Around here they've been thinned out pretty good.

Yrs ago the stocked tiger muskie in sections of the Potomac river I once fished.
Bass fishing at times was crazy because of all the panfish nibbles.

They've been thinned out also.
Now the flathead cats are making their presence know. 👍

Yippee I finally caught a few Largemouth this morning! Bass fishing has been tough the last few weeks for myself and I think most of the Anglers here at Havasu but doing well with Stripers if they can locate them. Some are coming in with some big 8-9 lb fish. But Largemouth have been difficult until this morning when I launched my kayak at 10:30 at Mesquite Bay. Beautiful sunny 75° Arizona day with no wind, did some trolling for stripers and finally stopped in some tules and did some casting with my Square Bill. I caught two Largemouth 1- 1.5 pound and paddled back towards the launch ramp around 12:30 to catch one more in the reeds.
Best fishing story is as I arrived a guy was just pulling out at 12 ft aluminum row boat and he asked me what type fish he had in a bag. He thought it was a small mouth but when he opened it up it was a huge humongous Largemouth at least 6 lb maybe pushing seven and the biggest fish I've ever seen in person here at Havasu. He also caught it on a deep diving crankbait at 6:00 in the morning still in the dark which is way too cold and early for me!
He took it home for dinner.

Well, I looked at the weather reports for the week we were goin to be up here and it showed that it was gonna be clear and sunny for a few days before we were gonna leave on Thursday the 7th.
YEAH, RIGHT ! Started snowin earlier this afternoon and there are chain controls up right now on all the roads leavin the Tahoe area, headed west anyway.
There's bout 6 inches right now and don't know what it's goin to look like in the mornin.
Now none of this would matter IF I had brought my F-150 4X4. BUT NOOO. We decided to bring the little Honda Civic.
Glad I'm retired and we don't HAVE to be back in Windsor tomorrow. So we'll just have to leave when the roads open up enough NOT to have chain controls.
It was a gamble to bring the Honda this time of year but the weather wasn't suppose to be like this.
Guess somebody forgot to tell, or check, with Mother Nature first.
Y'all have a good night. Saw1.