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It seems like we have a lot of woodcock this year.
They spend the winters down in Europe were they are eagerly shot at by hunters.
Millions of them are killed each winter, still there seems to be enough left of
them to migrate north to breed during our short summer. We breed them and the
Frenchmen eat them, bloody waist of good meat!
The now 8 years old Briz has finally developed into
a good woodcock dog and she makes finds every day when we are out. She is more
cautious than her bolder mother and it works well with the woodcocks. She has
also learned to track and nail running pheasants very well. In Austria
they have again started to shoot woodcock in the spring, very opposite to the
will of the EU. We have not heard the last of it yet, I am afraid. The
particular shooting in the spring takes place in the evening when the males fly
maintaining their territory and extensive research has shown that shooting the
males do not harm the population. Even pointing dogs enjoy this type of hunting.
They will hear the sound of the bird far earlier than you do and watching the
dog will alert you and tell you from what direction the bird is approaching in
the darkness. Then after the shot you need the dog to find the bird in the
cover. They are very difficult to see in full daylight and in the evening they
are almost impossible to find without a dog.
It is impossible to describe how much I dislike the
EU. Every law they produce is made to benefit those who live in the central
Europe and those of us living around the periphery will get nothing but
disadvantage. The latest idiotic rule is this: "Grazing land must not contain
more than 50 trees/hectare (=10000 square meters)". This means that a huge
biodiversity must be killed, to the disadvantage of all wild life, in order to
get economical support for your land from the EU agricultural department. This
rule is OK for the central Europe since they have had their biodiversity killed
decades ago and there is nothing to loose for them. We, up here in the north,
still having more than a handful of species living in our soil, are the losers
once again!
A lot of problems concerning conservation, hunting
and wildlife would be immediately solved if they only stopped giving all
kind of economical support to the farmers. Many of the farmers hate to spoil the
biodiversity on their land but they have no choice with today's
system.
Torsti
Borta Med Vindens Kennel "Ask not what your dog can do for you. Ask
what you can do for your dog." www.rospigan.net
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 3:20
PM
Subject: [working-gundog] Texas
Quail
Last spring it rained and rained and the weeds and grass just
grew like
crazy. You could hide a Tennessee Walker in the broom weeds.
When fall came
the quail seemed to be gone. The guys with the big leases
and the little
rent houses where they camp while out here hunting all
packed up and went
home after a couple of tries. I had one guy that
owns a bunch of land that
came and brought his guys to hunt the pheasants
because he couldn't find
quail. Well now its dry and we need humidity as
well as rain but there is a
pair of quail everywhere you look. I was
putting corn on the lane around one
of our wheat fields and there was 10
pair in 200 yards.
They are everywhere. I won't get to hunt them much but
sure hope they bounce
back as this may be a banner year. Except for the
last year we have had it
better than the last 15 to 20
years.
Ron
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