My grandfather and his brother both had Irish Setters when I was just getting old enough to tag along, back in the early 1950s. Both were excellent dogs, and they used them for waterfowl hunting on the Texas coast, as well as for quail hunting. They were truly all-around gun dogs. I always wanted one.
By the time that I was in graduate school, (and thinking that I would like a good all-purpose bird dog), it was virtually impossible to find Irish bred for hunting anywhere in Texas, Oklahoma or Louisiana. That was almost 50 years ago, and I have not seen an Irish Setter being hunted anywhere, from here to Montana and in-between, in the intervening years. Around ten or fifteen years ago, while in Washington DC on business, I met a guy from Montana who bred Irish for hunting. I spent some time just now looking for his business card, but it seems to be long gone. As I recall, he owned an RV park or a trailer park, but I'll be damned if I can remember where in Montana it was.
These days, thanks to the internet, you can find just about any breed in which you are interested, but finding a kennel that produces good hunting dogs in most of the less popular breeds is still not easy. I wish you good luck in your search, but patience is required (and hopefully rewarded.)
