Ghillie's Report Card

[trekmoor]

I still haven't been well enough to go to any shoots … I have hardly set foot outside the house for weeks now. An old friend phoned me this morning and he cheered me up a bit by telling me of Libby the brittanie's latest exploits . She's been doing so much work she's had to have her amount of food considerably increased. I "moved Libby on " a couple of years ago now to a man I knew fairly well and the home she got exceeded all my expectations.

He works her at her proper job of being an HPR but he also picks up with her at shoots and takes her duck shooting and works her for his birds of prey. She is out for at least one hour of hunting every day even when it's only for the exercise.

When I had her she was already "doing everything " and doing it well but I expected to hear that by now she was getting out of control or was , at least, running -in. Apparently that is not the case. She has remained completely steady to flush and to fall and she still does not chase rabbits or hares either. I must have trained her a bit better than I'd thought !

When he first got her my friends only complaint was that he'd thought she did not like retrieving . His own previous dogs all ran - in and he wasn't used to having to command a dog to retrieve ! He told me it had taken him several seconds to realise that she was completely steady and was waiting to be told she could retrieve ! This standard of steadiness has never left her even though my friend has told me that he wouldn't mind at all if she did run-in .


He now has a younger brit than Libby but she, like his previous dogs , does run -in …..but still Libby remains steady. He says he will be keeping the younger Brit but that she is not much of a hunter , not compared to Libby anyway who works well on all species of gamebirds and on fur. It seems I placed Libby as a very square peg into a very square hole.....she is having a great life. I still miss her very much but I am certain I was right to "move her on."


I consider her to be the last dog I ever fully trained . I sort of ran out of puff and haven't managed to fully train any dog since her.

I heard about how "Rosie" the vizsla whom I trained just before Libby is doing too. Her owners don't go shooting but a parent of one of them is a gamekeeper and so Rosie got pressed into service once or twice. Apparently she too is still very steady .

My unorthodox ways of training for complete steadiness seem to have worked very well considering I didn't even shoot over those two bitches much at all. It was all done with dummies, with frisbees of various kinds and by taking the bitches out picking-up.

Wish I could remember how I did it …..Edge and Ghillie could use some of that training !

Wullie

[Stacia]

So sorry to read you haven't been out of the house for weeks, that must be very frustrating for you.

Great though to hear what a good life Libby is having and that your training still stands

[h&t]

Thanks for the news on the other dogs, Bill. Sounds like Libby won dog's lottery
It's amazing when how a well trained dog remembers... A job well done, you!
Merry Christmas! I hope you feel better soon.

[trekmoor]

26 -12 -2018.

Forth Estates - 10 .30 a.m. - Clear skies and fairly warm, very light winds.

Dogs - Ghillie and Edge.

I'd told my wife the night before that I wouldn't be going to the shoot but I felt a bit better in the morning than is usual for me now so I grabbed my whistle and my dogs and off we went.


Only five birds were shot on the first drive ….yesterdays guns were all youngsters out with their supervising daddies. Their shooting was not very good. I got nothing to do on that drive. The second drive saw the youngsters hit a few more birds but none that came my way.


I'd been welcomed with open arms by the other pickers-up when I arrived at the shoot yesterday because only 3 of them had turned up. Normally , about 8 pickers up are employed on this shoot so the three who had turned up were feeling the pressure a bit to sweep through the areas normally covered by the other 5 pickers up in addition to their own areas. I went as a back marker as usual and had a bit of a job on my hands too trying to cover ground by "sweeping" it after a drive that would normally have been covered by a picker up.


I managed it but was getting very tired and breathless …..and still my dogs found no birds at all....the guns just weren't hitting them !


The third drive came along and at last a bird, a cock pheasant, came my way and came back to near my position about 250 yards behind the guns. I really don't know what made me think this bird was hit. It didn't look as if it was in trouble, it just glided into the woods behind me about 40 yards away and ran. Some little thing in the birds flight must have alerted my "reptile brain" and when I looked down at my dogs I noticed they both thought this bird was wounded too.


I sent Ghillie off after it and she brought it back to me in no time flat …..it can't have ran very far before tucking in to the plentiful cover inside the wood. At least Ghillie had now had a retrieve , just Edge to get a bird or two now I thought.


One of the other pickers -up came back to his car as I arrived at mine and asked me if I was going to the party. I hadn't even known there was to be a party and I was , by now, far too exhausted to go to it. I asked if it was now lunch time …. I was badly needing a rest and only my determination not to leave just 3 pickers up to do all the work was preventing me from going home there and then.


It was only then that I was told that only 3 drives were being done that day ….it was all over .

I saw the keeper near the gamecart about 70 yards away , first time I'd seen him all day . He waved to me and walked towards me to wish me a Merry Xmas and to thank me for covering the back marking positions on my own. He hadn't even known I was at the shoot until he saw me after that last drive.


Edge will have to wait for a bird to retrieve until I feel well enough to go to a shoot again coz I am far too knackered to go to the one the keeper asked me to go to today ! - - - - And I've got the scoots ….again !

Wullie

[Blackjaw]

Wullie, Happy to hear you got out, even if you only got one retrieve for your dogs. How much longer does your season last? Ours on the east side of Washington State goes through the 21st of January, but all of the public land roosters that have survived are pretty smart by this time although you can occasionally find one that makes a mistake and doesn't flush out of gun range and the California quail are still pretty plentiful in some spots.

[trekmoor]

Apart from going fishing about a week ago....and catching nothing..... I have hardly been over the doorstep for weeks. I finally decided that I no longer needed a 4 x4 car since I wasn't going to shoots and sold it today and bought another "new to me" old banger.

Every cloud has a silver lining coz my new car is supposed to do 60 to the gallon which is more than double what my 4 x 4 did !
Then I got a nice surprise with the road tax too.... £30 a year instead of £320 !!! The insurance will be cheaper too.
I've been driving 4 x 4's for so many years now I'd forgotten how relatively cheap "normal cars" are to run.

I now have a skoda fabia estate and can still go to shoots and go fishing but at a much lesser cost. It does have a drawback , I haven't actually tried it for size yet but I don't think my big dog cage will go into it's back . At least I will be able to drive my dogs 20 miles and let them out for a run now without having to second mortgage my house.

Wullie

[ips]

My mate has one of those and loves it, you will get everywhere you need to and at a much reduced running cost good move i reckon

[munstyman]

Then I got a nice surprise with the road tax too.... £30 a year instead of £320 !!!

Shouldn't that have a 1 in front of it Unless there is nothing in the engine compartment and the driving pedals rotate
I agree though since they were taken over by VW, they are good cars.

[Naj]

I’ve Been shooting all my life and got by fine without a 4x4 .

[Nickheref]

I had a Fabia Estate, I bought it cheap with 60k on the clock when I no longer got a company car as I was setting up my own business and it was the best car I've ever had, took a bit of getting used to after the pricier makes I had had before but I soon loved it to bits, when I had taken it to 180k miles I thought I would change it as another mate had an Octavia Estate with 50k on the clock going cheap, my brother was so impressed with it that he begged the Fabia off me and I hate to think how many miles it has done now!!! A mechanic mate tells me he thinks modern Skodas are better put together than Audis or VWs.