Absolutely one of the best videos I've seen depicting grouse and woodcock hunting. I run a setter in northern MN and I loved every minute of this. From the wide open miss, the fantastic find by the swamp, and the reason you run a bell. I'm right there with you friend. Great dog work and thanks for bringing us along. Keep up the great work!
Patrick - thanks so much for following along and the comment, I really do appreciate that. I've been trying to give justice to some of the smaller details that go into Ruff hunting that make it so enjoyable, glad to hear you caught on to them and enjoyed it. Best of luck out there running the Northwoods with your setter rest of season!
I can appreciate that when he looked at the bird in his buddy's vest he picked up the single feather that dropped and put it back in the vest. Im leaving for Maine on Thurs. and sitting here at work now watching this video was exactly what I needed to get me pumped.
SUPER video! Thank you for the effort! Best grouse video I’ve seen on RU-vid. I especially appreciate the absence of loud obnoxious music and no narration over key scenes, so we can hear everything on the hunt! Super narration. GREAT video all-around!
Oh man, the sound of bells in the woods. Im ready for October brother! Your video is what we try to explain to people who don’t understand. Brush busting fun. So fun to watch.
nice video man - good dog work especially for a young dog. I'd much rather a young dog be cautious and point old scent or moving birds than pressure them. Grouse hunting is about the only type of upland hunting I have not done much of yet and your vid really made me want to cross this off my bucket list!
Enjoyed your hunt. Thank you. I’m, or was, a Michigander. Grew up hunting ruff grouse and woodcock, as well as pheasants. Watching I could but all smell that northern woods air and hear the crunch underneath my boot. I live in Baja Sur, MX, for several years, but I make it back to the USA for bird hunting season BEFORE COVID. I’m hoping to go back this this year; THANK YOU FOR THE MOTIVATION.
From one Michigander to another - thanks for following along! Hope you can make it back to hunt sometime, you can always come home 👊 Best of luck and safe travels when you're able to make the trek back.
plus one on the bell telling a story. My Daisy is a golden retriever bernese mix. Not a hunting dog. i was deer hunting one day and busted 2 pheasant before i decided to go back to the truck and swap rifle for shotgun and the dog. she wasnt birdy at all, just chasing field mice and would stay wicked close to me. she was running scrub brush in a drainage when her bell picked up intensity and she started getting distant. she managed to push a bird to the end of the drainage where i was ready with a clear 120 degree shooting lane into a field. sure as shit, the bird busts out with daisy 20ft behind. took the second shot on a sweet panning sweep to get my first pheasant. tho my dog didnt retrieve birds yet, she did mark and sit at the bird. so many firsts. stoic.
Nothing excites me more than loading the shotgun for some upland wing shooting. Unfortunately, here in SC, we don’t have good bird hunting. Which is disappointing considering I have the shotgun bug BAD 😂😂 great vid, hope Ember does good in the future
by far the best grouse and woodcock content I have found on youtube. I love the format of these videos, just a man and his dogs working the north woods. Have yet to get a grouse yet, but have had my fair share of flushes with out a dog.
It gets addicting fast! Especially when you can just hear birds flush, you wanna keep trying to get a shot! Thanks for following along, good luck out there!
Great Video. I love your channel and am very glad to see it growing. At 3:06 when you missed that bird that is when I knew you were working a young dog. An experienced dog gives you such a dirty look when you miss. They seem to say "I did my job and you screwed your part," with just their eyes.
I am new to the channel. I love the content especially the grouse hunting in the Northwoods! I just the last of three special britanny grouse dogs. Irish was 15 and had a great sporting life full of birds and love. Now that I may be looking for another Brittany I was wondering if you obtained your brittany pack from the same breeder? My previous bird dogs have been out of Quail Hollow Kennels and all three were special on wild grouse!
Thanks for following along man! Two of our dogs are from the same place in IL, and a 3rd from ND. The 4th we bred our self. I personally don't have any experience with Quail Hollow.
Thanks Chris! I think you speak for all of us Bird Dog lovers when you say you pay more attention to the dog. That's what its all about! Thanks for following along!
Awesome man! It gets addicting fast. Before you know it you'll have three bird dogs running around your house causing chaos lol. Thanks for following along, and good luck out there!
I would never consider using a bell on my pointer for most of my upland bird hunting but it doesn’t seem to phase the ruffed grouse and woodcock right?
Great video, really enjoyed it. I honestly don't know how you get a shot off in some of the cover you are walking through. Plus that cover must be hell on the wood finish of your guns.
It's all part of the game and what makes it so fun to me! Ever situation is different and the cover ALWAYS plays a roll, not just in how you shoot, but how you approach the dog etc. My guns definitely take a beating and have some marks to show for it. I call it engraving by the Northwoods, lol. Thanks for watching and following along. Good luck the rest of the season!
Thanks man it ain’t much lol I got it for $200 bucks from a coworker this summer. It’s a stoeger, fits me good and it goes bang. I’ve heard good things about the CZ bobwhite, Justin who I hunt with has his eye on one as well. Good luck the rest of the season, and thanks for following along!
@@UplanderLifestyle I know I am way late on this but I hunted with a Stoeger Uplander for 5 yrs shot skeet, five stand and sporting clay's as well. Now I have a 20 gauge g2 and a CZ sharptail as well. My G2 has become my favorite grouse gun . Hope your friend likes his
The Bell can be a double Edge Sword 🗡️ if you hunt same areas more than a couple times it tips off 🦅 you’re coming! it’s not a natural sound a bird would hear 👂 a dog running could sound like a deer, coyote, natural! I ever run bell 🛎️ pheasant Hunting, try to get talking to a minimum. Maybe you should have an old timer on one of your bird talk sessions. By the way I’m very impressed with you & Justin’s Dogs 🐕 and knowledge of bird hunting ! What general area do you reside in , in Michigan?
Totally agree! I don't ever run a bell on pheasants. Grouse, I stopped this year. I'm worried about long term effects on the dogs hearing with a bell ringing next to it for hours every day, we spend a lot of time hunting. My dogs are also smaller, and I think the smaller frame can really sneak in on grouse in the woods without a bell. We are Northeast of Flint.
@@UplanderLifestyle lived in Burton Lippincott & Genesee reds , now in Linden Area ! I have a process. I expose young dogs 🐕 to so they keep track of me in the wild ! Do you ship merchandise out of your location? Not sure of sizing on performance T’s! Thanks
@@wallacerose7499 we do ship out of our location. The performance shirts have a pretty straight cut to them, I would order your normal size. Thank you!
Like your video. I used to hunt with Brittany’s but now have Setters and hunt every day during the season in the UP. I just purchased a GoPro9 to film my hunts. What mount and settings do you use to film?
Thanks! I had changed to those settings last week and works better. It is jumpy watching them on my computer, but if I upload them to youtube they appear better. We go 10-12 inches up here but almost gone now. Started seeing birds in places that were dead earlier in the year though.
Great video. Nice hunting. Grouse hunting can be hard whenever I go out I only get one or two, but it's so much fun. I bet it would be easier if I had a dog and I would probably kick up more birds.
Thinking of bringing my springer for a hunt with me in Ontario. Going to buy a vest and orange collar and bells but is there anything else you suggest I acquire before I go/ areas to avoid for safety reasons etc. Any help is appreciated
You didn’t mention the breed of Amber. A springer pointing is most undesirable in my books, they are flushing gun dogs. The cover you are in is definitely made for pointers. Both of my Springers were steady to gun, flushed well and were excellent retrieving dogs. On a wounded bird they always went to great lengths to retrieve the bird. At 75, I still miss upland bird hunting solely because of my dogs. That Brittany is well suited for that cover if it’s trained. Learn to use a whistle and stop flapping your gums. Less is more.
Excellent dog work AND shooting. What a pleasure to watch someone who trains and handled his dogs well. Could I ask if Yeti and Amber (Ember) share any of the same lines and/or are from the same breeder. Their working styles SEEM similar in this video, and it's obvious (at least to me) that both are excellent workers. Thanks for sharing, Chris (in Maine).
Thanks Chris. Ember and Yeti are actually out of completely different lines, and they have different hunting styles as well. Sometimes its hard to do a single dog justice in how it works in a video, and they all kind of mesh together. They both excel at hunting, but the differences between them give me the ability to run each dog in different situations depending on what we're hunting.
Nice video!! My brother and I went on our first grouse hunt in Northern Wisconsin back in October and it was a very humbling experience 😂. Our guides dogs flushed a lot of birds for us but we are pheasant hunters from Iowa and definitely were not adapted to this kind of hunting. We both got a grouse and I ended up with a woodcock. We are going to do it again next season with a little more experience.
Thank you! And congrats on bagging a grouse! There is a learning curve that comes with it for sure. Working on the next video where I'm going to talk about the covers I'm in, why I'm there and what they look like. Good luck the rest of season! Thanks for following along.
I think the bell does add pressure on the bird for sure. I don't think the bell makes the bird get up and fly as soon as it hears it.. birds don't want to fly, its the last resort. I do believe they sometimes stand up and walk away from it, but the dog figures out how to work that bird eventually as it walks away and put it in a place you can shoot it. It takes some time and a lot of contacts, but eventually the dog works the bird based on what the bird is doing, and a bell plays a part in it. And I'll take that with the bell because I like the real time interaction with the dog to know exactly how its working.
Really enjoyed this video. I hunt with an American Water Spaniel. Not a common choice but they are excellent flushing dogs and love retrieving. If only I was a better wing shooter
Really enjoyed this video! Great Dog work, and camera work! Truly felt like I was there with you! Are your dogs Brittanys? Fantastic working dogs! Were you hunting in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan? Just curious. Thank you for the video; I subscribed as I am really impressed with your footage! Good Hunting! ~Lou
Hey Lou - appreciate that and thanks for following along! Yes, they are all Brittanys. I have two Livers and an orange. I hunt in Northern MI. Thanks for following a long and good luck out there!
@@UplanderLifestyle Thanks for the info! I gather that you are in the U.P. when you say Northern Michigan...we watch a you tube channel called "906 Outdoors"....like the episodes they show, as my wife and I spend time up in Manistique, Munising, and the Porcupine Mt. area with our camper...plan to find more paces to stay while up there...love the Northwoods!!
Fantastic video! Subscribed and saved. I grew up with Brittanys. Have been dog less for 35 years (job as a pilot doesn’t allow the time dedication the dog deserves, maybe in retirement?). I’ve been highlighting nuances of dog less Woodcock n Grouse hunting in southern NH,ME but really am wanting a liver n white Brit (had an orange but my wife likes the liver!). I’ve been getting some friend’s young dogs into wild birds but it’s not quite the same. Your dogs are amazing. Did you train from pups? If so well done. Love the cover you show, highlighting the wide variety of cover density these birds are found in. Love the classic bell! You’re tone and pace in the woods is something to emulate. I felt like I was with you guys. Thanks for bringing us along. If you ever come to New England… Great job, keep it up and enjoy the uplands.
I really appreciate that, it's all for the dogs and why we do it, for the most part. Brittanys, and especially livers hold a special place in my heart. I really enjoy their look. I have trained all of my dogs since they were pups. We raise birds for training as well. I work them year round. We've got some more videos coming up still. A couple more from the Northwoods here in MI and a couple more from our trip from Montana in September. Thanks for following along!
@@UplanderLifestyle It is obvious that you spend a lot of training time with your dogs. I wish I had more time I could devote to training a pup. It is nice to see it being done right by a young hunter (I’m almost 60 so you’re a kid!). I’m missing having a dog as bird numbers are down in southern NH, ME and habitat loss is real. So, walking up birds (even though I love the challenge to all the senses) in tough cover is getting hard on this “old man”! Lol Thanks again for sharing your time afield.
You do a great job with your videos and training your dogs. I grew up in northern Wisconsin hunting grouse and woodcock. Good to see the work again. Any problems with ticks in hunting season?
Thanks Wade! We will run into ticks, but usually its only a few. Every once and a while we'll go through a section where the dogs pick up more. I try and look them over at the end of the day and get ride of any ticks crawling on them.
@@UplanderLifestyle I hunt Wi and Mn and always see a lot more ticks in Wi. Have you noticed the same? Which state was this hunt in? Good luck in 2022!
@@oscarbauer1322 I've just hunted here in Michigan for Ruffs. Some spots we don't find any ticks, other's we;ll find a few, and the occasional spot we'll come out with ticks crawling all over us. Thanks, good luck to you as well!
@@UplanderLifestyle trying to get my first grouse and woodcock this year also got a GSP, I usually hunt quail and pheasants mainly so I wanna get those 2 off my list
Only knock is you are both shooting junk doubles......you will figure it out eventually. LOL.... you have some nice dogs there....2nd day you were shooting a man's weapon. :)
Always good to hear from another Brit owner. My 3 dogs come from Nstra lines. They're a mix of Beeline, Little Pants, Blaze, Tequila and a few others. What's your timeframe for a dog? I believe we're looking at having a litter this Spring with my Liver female.
We use to have birds all over North Georgia on the forest lands. But the government stopped cutting timber . The activist kept them tied up in law suits . The birds need the young growth from cutting.