A good waterfowl dog is probably a priority. If it wasnt for my boys allergies I'd just get a lab. However, I love hunting upland behind a pointer.
I think hunting upland with a pointer usually works out better for young learning hunters. It gives them a bit of a chance to get ready for the bird. I've hunted a lot of upland with vizslas over the years and really enjoyed hunting with them.
I unfortunately can't walk the upland fields like I used to but I still do ok in a duck blind some days. My friend says his Griffs are doing pretty well at retrieving ducks but he doesn't hunt waterfowl as much as upland.
I'm going to look into this upcoming litter of Griffs and if the health checks look good I'll get on the list. My wife thinks their ugly but she'll just have to learn to accept it. She's still trying to with me.
I really liked the Irish water spaniel we met the other day too. I think I'll try to get one of those eventually too but they say it will take a few years. We'd like to have 2 dogs anyways.
My brother always has at least one lab and one Vizsla. Between the two they cover all the different bird hunting we've done over the years. His last Vizsla kind of taught the lab to point. We hunted them together on a lot of pheasants over the years and they learned to hunt well together. They would honor each others points and stuff. The lab seemed to have its nose on the ground sniffing tracks a lot and the Vizsla had his nose mostly in the air winding things.
The company I used to work for used to buy a lot of birds at a hunting club and towards the end of the season they'd always tell me to go use them because no one else made time to go hunting. My brother would always come with and we got his dogs on lots of pheasants, guns, and even some chuckers. Mostly planted birds with some wild but the dogs did get the chance to be on dozens of birds several times each year.
I personally have a lot to learn about bird dogs because I've mostly hunted with my brothers over the years.
Thanks,
Bb
Last edited by Burleyboy; 12/30/19.
