Ethan Pippitt from Willow Creek Kennels offers an excellent exercise to help your dog develop better memory for retrieving. I love training exercises that are both simple and effective. Great stuff.
Read MoreHunting
The Orvis Hunting Blog celebrates our wingshooting heritage with bird hunting news, and entertaining and enlightening podcasts by Orvis wingshooting expert Reid Bryant. We take you into the field with us in our informative articles, photos, and videos that share the sporting lifestyle we love.
The Games We Play
In shot gunning there are many different ways we can improve our hit percentage. Skeet, Trap, Sporting clay, or just going to the local sand pit with a hand thrower are all ways to have fun and perfect your shot gunning skills. In this podcast Brett and I attempt to explain the different shooting game’s we enjoy and think you will too.
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Video: Grouse and Woodcock in the North Woods
Here’s a cool video by my friend Lisa Savard, filmed in the woods near Cabins at Lopstick, which she owns and operates with her husband, Tim. Living in the Connecticut Lakes region of far-northern New Hampshire, Lisa and her dogs have access to thousands of square miles of woods, but you can see that this is no walk in the park. The cover that grouse and woodcock prefer can be thick stuff, where it’s difficult to even get a shot at a flushed bird.
Read MoreMurph’s First Bird: Picking at Sandanona
I’ve been training Murphy for almost a year now, and he’s seen his share of feathered bumpers, goose scented tennis balls, and frozen ducks, but the opportunity to get his mouth on freshly downed birds was not something I was taking lightly. I wanted a somewhat controlled, but real environment, and a Continental Release at Sandanona Shooting Grounds in Millbrook, New York, seemed just the place.
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Read MoreVideo: Huntin’ at Zeke’s
This is no lodge experience. Hunting at Zeke’s Rooster Ranch is the North Dakota equivalent to a Vermont deer camp, only on a grander scale. During pheasant season, men and dogs congregate from all over the country to hunt pheasant and enjoy some time off the grid. To explain the history of how all these men are connected and how I got there would take. . .
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To train your hunting dog, you must be a leader
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Some of the most interesting things about working with Mike Stewart of Wildrose Kennels—I was taking a dog-training course and writing a book with him at the same time—are the subtleties that are far beyond the actual mechanics of running drills. Perhaps the most important premise (and the thing that most people simple don’t get) is that dog training is more about training yourself how to train the dog.
Read MoreSharptails and Setters in Big Sky Country
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Having spent nearly thirty-five years chasing grouse and woodcock throughout the Northeast, with an occasional foray for southern quail or pheasants in Iowa and Kansas, I was excited to get the opportunity to hunt sharptails and huns in north-central Montana. And in one word–Wow!
Read MoreTips for Creating Upland Bird Habitat
Thoughts about how to manage upland birds vary widely depending upon where your geographic location. One thing that is, unfortunately, the same everywhere is the decline in upland bird numbers, especially quail. For the past 50 years, the quail population has been slowly decreasing on a national level. Programs such as Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP), . . .
Read MoreFamous Deer Creek Lodge Duck Hors D’oeuvres
Often this time of year, many of us who hunt have extra game in the freezer we need to use up. If you have any duck or pheasant in your freezer that you don’t know what to do with, the Famous Deer Creek Lodge Duck & Pheasant Hors D’oeuvres are your answer. Delicious.
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Breaking Clays Tips: The Teal Station
Fridays at Orvis Sandanona Shooting Grounds mean one thing to me: Clay Breaking Sessions. I hold these 3-hour clinics both in the morning and afternoon. Each is limited to just four shooters with a focus on a particular target presentation you’ll find on any sporting clays course in the world. While nothing compares to being taught on the course, I will tip and insights now and again to improve your shooting. This week: the teal station.
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