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.
I’m getting a new puppy the first of the year. He’s a Wildrose British Labrador out of their new sire FTch Glenoch Ruff who came from Northern Ireland this year. My dog Pickett is now 8 years old and at the peak of his performance physically and mentally, but it’s time to start bringing along the successor.
Read MoreIn this, the second part of a four part series on training your hunting dog (see episode 1 here) of the Double Barrel Podcast, I’m once again joined in the podcast studio by my good friend Mike Stewart of Wildrose Kennels to discuss the all-important first six months of training your puppy. Mike goes into detail about a prgram he calls “Early Starts”.
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“This year, we’re seeing even more remarkable numbers of pheasant, because the habitat work we’ve done over the years is maturing and the resulting population is breathtaking,” said Nelson.
Read More Simon Perkins hunts in Montana. |
In the first part of a four part series of the Double Barrel Podcast, Brett is joined in the studio by Mike Stewart from Wildrose Kennels. In this episode, learn the steps on how to find the puppy that will be right for you and your needs in the field. Mike has some great tips here on what to look for in researching your new gun dog.
A couple of weeks ago I went bird hunting in Montana at the invitation of Dave Perkins. A gracious invitation to say the least, and one that offered up a most notable new experience. This was different. Standing on the ridge I looked across a sea of grass with mountain islands here and there, and the distance defined only by the last jagged range in the distance.
“How far are those?”
“ About 120 miles.”
“Damn.”
I was hunting sharptails near Great Falls. Next-door neighbors are calculated in miles. It looks flat, but it’s not. It rolls and dips and rises like ocean swells and not until you get out of the truck and immerse yourself in it, do you discover the detail, the variations of terrain and vegetation, the places where sharptails find cover.
Come autumn, I have the best job in the world. As a bird hunting guide for PRO Outfitters in Central Montana, I spend 28 days a month with my dogs walking rolling hills under a big sky, looking for wild sharptail grouse, Hungarian partridge, and ring-neck pheasant. My dogs are ideal co-workers: every morning their eyes light up when they see me, and they can’t wait to get to work. Bird hunters know that few things compare to the bond you share with your dog in the field. And nothing compares to watching your young pointing dog gain confidence, put the pieces together, and finally “get it.”
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Ever since Orvis began selling guns in the early 1970’s, when we introduced the Orvis Wingshooting Schools, we’ve offered custom-fitted shotguns along with our completely handmade side-by-side shotguns. The custom-fitted shotgun program, unique to Orvis, provides the shooter a gun built to the shooter’s individual measurements. These measurements are taken by our skilled gun-fitters to insure your gun fits your specific build perfectly and, most importantly, shoots where you point.
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