[quote=RimfireArtist][URL=https://imageshack.com/i/pndEUklXj
The bottom line for me is, the birds are generally more concentrated in fence lines, canal banks and roadside cover (I am not talking about main highways or even bigger county roads, I am talking the small section line roads) after the crops are cut. Even if you do hunt the big fields with standing crops, that cover is often way the hell over my 6'1" head. There's lots of ways to be successful if you think outside the box and adapt to whatever the conditions are that are thrown at you.
I will grant you that if all the lands around have been planted and harvested, then the birds are going to be concentrated along the roads, because that is where the only cover is. For a good hunt away from roads you have to find land that is not cultivated, or at least hasn't been for some years. Sloughs aren't, because they are too wet too much of the year, but they can also be real nasty to walk through. Ideal are the farms that leave not only the sloughs uncultivated but also some shelter belts and former CRP land.
I will also grant you that in rural SD a thousand dogs are cut by barbed wire for every one that get cut on litter glass, but I can usually fix a wire cut myself, where there is no fixing a sliced pad, short of letting them heal for a month. Also, dogs will eventually learn to avoid the barbs, where they will never learn to avoid broken glass.
A good dog will eventually learn how to deal with a running bird, meaning learn how to trap it without over-running it and making it fly. The pup in the photo is learning how to do that. But while he still over-runs some 100 yards out and makes them fly, I do not think that, had I had no dog along, I would have ever gotten a shot either. My experience is that the birds run from whatever they see (or hear), and that is far more likely to be the taller, talking people than the dog.
And no matter what else is going on, or how good a shot you are, there are always roosters where the only damage was a broken wing, and without a dog you have just about zero chance of finding it. So the dog is going to be along with me any way. For me it is never a choice of "will it be better to take the dog or not?" The dog is going along. If he isn't trained yet, well, okay, then that day will be a training day and I my not get many, or any, shots, but that's okay -- I am preparing for future hunts.
It takes years to train a dog to be great in all aspects of pheasant hunting. Most people don't have the time or the patience. I don't know any other way to do it other than to let the birds train the dog. I can teach them to NOT do something (like bite porcupines) with an e-collar, but I can't train them to DO something, like figuring out which direction a running rooster is going and then circling out to the front to cut them off, then holding them on point until I can get there to flush the bird. Many will, however, learn that from the birds, eventually. (There is that word again.
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Concerning porcupines, I NEVER take a dog hunting without having a pair of needle-nose pliers on me. I have never had to take a quilled dog to the vet, and that is a good thing since a vet is often several hours away from where I am hunting. In that time some of those quills would have disappeared into the dog, doing who knows what damage.
