New to the upland game

I have access to 75 acres here in Texas ,that my in-laws own. We have use it as a rec hunting get away it to hunt deer, turkey, dove, hog, whatever comes along (javalina, fallow, red stag). They have allowed me to modify reasonably to best suite my dog training needs and also provide for a little 'put and take' hunting over a young learning pup. After doing some reading appears the most successful method and getting the most realistic experience for Ruby would be to try and 'soft release' birds before the season which has one of the lowest survival ratings as plus use johnny houses for my specific training purposes. As very novice aspiring upland hunters it seems like the perfect place to learn the quail ropes for all involved.

If you had this opportunity what would your first order of business be to be ready to have some flight conditioned birds for this fall.

Here is overview of the property. The red lines are over-laid on places that I thought would be planted in strips in milo and sorghum. I was reading somewhere that you want a 3 yr cycle of rest/disturbance/planting. The fields have basically been unused for several years, and are surrounded by various mesquite and oak patches, along with a 4 acre tank. Here some some pics to show relative thickness. I know the habitat supports quail because we have seen them in the past on trail cams, and heard some this past weekend.

Welcome to the forum. Do you have a question.

This was the question from my post.

If you had this opportunity what would your first order of business be to be ready to have some flight for flight conditioned birds for this fall?

My answer would be, just have a good bird supplier / connection ready for when bird season starts & buy the birds as you need them. Pick them up on Friday evening, get up early Saturday morning & release them, wait an hour or so & go after em. Next time you can, do it all over again.

Do you see more of a benefit using the johnny houses for a more realistic training scenario or is that overkill? I don't want to plant the birds for her.

Do you live on the property? how will you feed & water them?

Don't live there, but I have found several suppliers that advertise drip watering systems and food funnels that last anywhere from 2-3 weeks. We would be able to be out there every weekend when we get birds in place.

myself, I dont see the point, they are still going to be pen raised birds. Sounds like you will be adding a bunch of expense for no added benefit.

I do understand that you do not want to plant them. I would do exactly as CCBirddogman has described only to add that I would drive to several different points on the property and release (fly) 4-5 birds from your box. If you don't have one, get yourself one of those orange bird boxes with a spring loaded top hatch on it to assist with this procedure. This way you are reducing the possible human scent on the birds. As CC explained, fly them and wait about an hour to hunt.

I had a Johnny house for over 30 years. It was on about 20 acres of a 3,500 acre ranch. Across the road from my house. It served my needs well. The birds recalled better on some years than on other years. I seldom flew the birds out. I put them where I wanted them for training. I posted several pictures on this forum. I was pretty heave into NSTRA a few years ago. I wanted my dog to track me to where I planted the birds. The best trackers made the best NSTRA dogs.

It was pretty close to your house as I recall reading somewhere, right?

OK, Mattyg most people have seen this before, but since you're new you might find this a little help with training on pen raised birds. I start out with planting all my birds.


[quote=bill oxner]I've had a few PMs asking about my training method. I did this on another forum, so I still have the pictures in my album, so here goes;

All bird dogs point. The breaking process teaches them to hold point. There are two ways to teach a dog to hold point, with dozens of variations. The first way is to let the birds train the pups. That generally involves launchers and pigeons, with some whoa breaking mixed in. It's very effective. I use the Delmar Smith method, substituting the e-collar for the bump under the chin. My dogs are completely whoa broke before I put them on birds. I use pen raised quail, because I can be done with them for the summer. I like to start in August, and finish in time for hunting season.

I start off on the whoa post. I introduce the e-collar the same day, that I introduce the whoa post. Here's cracker on her first day with the whoa post;



I keep them on the whoa post only until I can get out in front of them, and then go to the yard for heel and whoa. Cracker tended to sit, so I had to start with the suitcase hitch. I go from the yard to longer walks. The pup has pretty well gotten it down after three weeks.



I then go from the walks to whoa in the field. Here's Cracker in the field in the field, before I put her on birds. This whole process has taken me around four weeks.



This is her first day on birds. I train alone, so I had to plant the bird, where I could wrap the CC around a bush. Notice the slack CC.



I kept her on the CC for three training days. She only went around on the bird one time. Here she is after 9 training flushes.




I started walking some of the birds out after a few days. Here you go;




A little side note. My birds were not recalling all that well, so I used Cookie to point them while I netted them;



A lot depends on the pup, and you have to adjust for each pup. Cracker has never taken out a single pointed bird or covey.

That's very interesting. So your dogs get no bird exposure until they are whoa broke and collar conditioned? Are they also fairly solid on obedience at this point? I would think you are waiting till atleast 6 months of age to begin this work, is that correct?

I feel as if I'm the luckiest man in the world in this respect. This particular pup was a September pup. The ranch had a good population of wild bobwhite quail a half mile south of my house. I ran her off my Gator with my other two dogs after season. Here she is at about 6 months old on wild birds with no CC.



I laid her up until August and started my yard work. Delmar Smith had a funny way of saying it. He said take them off birds and don't put them back until they are completely broke.