doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Grouse season opens Sept' first

RR,

Your griff looks almost human! Mine is a little devil despite her innocent looks.
Did you have your dog hold point at a yound age? I have let mine run after the planted pheasants and not "whow" her as George Hickox recommends...

Human?... can't you see that faint glowing in her eyes, still goofy after 2 more years. I'm not a professional trainer in any way, but I'll share my experiences with you through email. She has been easy to train and only saw 3 pen birds her first year around 16 weeks, the rest wild.
I don't want to take up any more of Dave's 'space', so try [ olddoubles(at)comcast(dot)net ] and put something that I'll be able to identify as the title. I'll be starting the weekend early and ending it late, no email at my shack in the woods.

Just moved to southwest Virginia a few weeks ago, and on Sunday I took a drive up to a West Virginia State Forest (about 30 min from the house) that holds about 10,000 acres of public hunting land. Had never been here before in my life and had no idea what the trip would hold.

By chance I ran into the resident ranger whose eyes lit up when he saw my one year old GSP. After meeting and greeting and getting down to the nitty gritty, he told me that the woods are full of grouse (ruffed) and that he only knows of one guy that hunts them with a dog. He seemed to think that the population was up quite a bit this year and had been seeing good looking broods regularly.

WV season doesn't open until Oct. 18, and I can't wait!!! New dog (first bird dog) and what seems like a great new place to hunt!

Tnwestes,


Your dog looks sharp!
Our county is as big as Rhode Island and only 10% is privately owned. I find grouse close to the county roads and not deep into the forest. But 10 thousand acres have lots of secrets to tell you...

Thanks for the compliment! I wound up with him kind of by accident, but I think he's going to be a great dog. Can't wait to hunt him hard this season.

I've been told by folks that have hunted this area in the past that old strip mines/pits (those are quite abundant) are a great place to find birds and most folks are open to letting bird hunters in. However, I haven't made any headway here and can't seem to find any good local advice - bird hunters and very few and far between.

Finding private land to hunt is of particular importance to me because VA allows NO Sunday hunting & WV allows it only on private land in specific counties. Due to my school schedule I can only hunt weekends and my dog and I desperately need the training!!!