Andrew I love your stories and pictures, you always capture a day so well, I never think to take the camera out on days like that but your pictures really reflected on the mood of the day.
I'd say that bag was pretty respectable considering visibility. How did the dogs fair with all the waiting around? I had day like that last week and I had them all cuddled into me, what a softie, shouldn't they have been keeping me warm I asked myself! Unfortunately my lab has a very sleek single coat and lives in the house so she suffers when it's cold and wet and my young springer is in ultra fit skinny trialling mode without a scrap of fat on her so I didn't take her that day. Her mother is the hairiest springer out (on par with Nic's Finn) so she never gets cold, great for the snowy winters we have but not for the summers although I don't recall having one this year! I have coats for the pointers on such days....
I must be nuts, but I think I'd actually quite enjoy freezing my ass off of a winter's day out on some moor somewhere..... it would all be worth it to see the dogs doing what they're bred to do.
Can I ask a wee question though? I keep hearing that the etiquette is to be invited on a shoot and do your turn of beating first for a season or two. Is that right? I went beating years ago, but I was only a child at the time and utterly clueless to what I was doing (I was with the gamekeepers daughter and just followed her, collected my tenner at the end of the day and skipped off home).
What if you've been training your dogs to retrieve though? Surely you couldn't take that same dog beating then? Or could you?
I was very lucky when I started to get serious about working my dogs, in that because I've been shooting for some time, I had enough contacts, one way or another, to be able to get into picking up straightaway.
To be honest, if your dog is up to standard, and you put the leg work in to find a shoot that needed pickers up, I would imagine you could short circuit things a little.
As for using a Labrador to go beating, well a lot of people do, and then sweep up around the pegs, or butts, at the end of the drive. But they can't handle those dogs out onto long distance retrieves, which I guess is what you were meaning Moj? My own view is that is down to the training, or lack of it some cases.
Andrew I love your stories and pictures, you always capture a day so well, I never think to take the camera out on days like that but your pictures really reflected on the mood of the day.
I'd say that bag was pretty respectable considering visibility. How did the dogs fair with all the waiting around? I had day like that last week and I had them all cuddled into me, what a softie, shouldn't they have been keeping me warm I asked myself!
I have coats for the pointers on such days....
Helen, it's nice to know that people enjoy the threads, I usually just take lots of pictures, (although not yesterday as it was too wet, or I was too busy, as the lone picker up), and then try and put together a bit of a story so people can get a feel for the day.
I must agree with you, the bag was very good considering the conditions. The two guys that own the moor and their guests were happy, so that's all that matters really.
As for the dogs and all the waiting around, the one saving grace yesterday, was that it was n't cold. We got sheltered out of the wind, and I've got a big Army poncho, that also maked a useful groundsheet, so we all got settled on that.
On cold days, I'll use the Equafleece coats whilst we are sat about, I like to keep warm, why should n't the dogs?
Andrew,
You do have an amazing way not only with photography but the words to go with it,
reading it & thinking of how utterly bitter it was out their today made me shiver as if id been there with you guys myself,
I have to say though i think id have had an expressions some what like missys, with my tongue out
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