Spotting or Dogging?

[SSL]

Forgive the title :lol:

I just wondered whether most low-land gamehawkers spotted game or worked a pointing breed.

[Tim Laycock]

Most I know do bit of both Steve, sometimes at the same time.

[SSL]

Most I know do bit of both Steve, sometimes at the same time.

Cheers Tim.

[Finnish]

We always do both Steve. If we see a covey of Partridge we will put the birds up if not we will work the dogs. I think the pole needs to be edited with the option for both mate.

Lee

[SSL]

I think the pole needs to be edited with the option for both mate.

Lee

Sounds like a job for a Supa Mod :supz:

[CloudBase1664]

Most I know do bit of both Steve, sometimes at the same time.

I'd agree with this.As a rule if you fly pheasants you will always need a dog .If you fly partridge you will not.I quite like flying over a point with my old tiercel but with a young hawk it can be a dangerous game .As you cannot tell what is in front of the dogs nose it is tantamount to flying on "spec".Spotting is an art in it's own right and if done properly is very precise .Many will take a dog on a lead in case things go 'tits up' .When flying partridge I'd like a pound for every time I've watched a dog flush a covey when the hawk has turned down wind:lol:

Dave

[Ben C]

What with the advent of so much released game and private shoots...its sometimes almost easier to spot....:evil::evil::evil::evil:

[SSL]

I'd agree with this.As a rule if you fly pheasants you will always need a dog .If you fly partridge you will not.I quite like flying over a point with my old tiercel but with a young hawk it can be a dangerous game .As you cannot tell what is in front of the dogs nose it is tantamount to flying on "spec".Spotting is an art in it's own right and if done properly is very precise .Many will take a dog on a lead in case things go 'tits up' .When flying partridge I'd like a pound for every time I've watched a dog flush a covey when the hawk has turned down wind:lol:

Dave

In your opinion then Dave, would you say its difficult to make a gamehawk without being able to spot for game?

[MickeyDredd]

Sounds like a job for a Supa Mod :supz:

Did somebody call?? ;)

No point waiting for Admin (who made the suggestion) to do it!!!

[Coupe]

in the initial stages of training, in my opinion its good to try and mix it up a bit, lets say spot one day, get a point the next maybe the day after fly over a pond the day after, mark a covey of greys in a big field let the bird fly and reach her pitch, then release the dog the falcon should hold them down, if the dog bumps them so what ! at this stage, what is important is not leaving the bird to long and always serving the falcon.. mixing it up keeps the bird on its toes so it never quite knows were the birds will get up from. saying this without a dog it just wouldnt be falconry. even if your spotting clip the dog on to your belt ive seen the best setups in the world go to rat sh**.
what ever happens if your using a dog or spotting dont let it turn into a rat hunt. serve the bird dont let them get bord. it ends up in tears trust me.

[MitchellBrad]

Forgive the title :lol:

I just wondered whether most low-land gamehawkers spotted game or worked a pointing breed.

As a friend of mine says there are three things you have to remember. I'll mention 2 of them. The sun rises in the east and always take a dog with you when out in the field. So, spot when you can and have the dog handy if you mismark the quarry. I don't always listen to him especially when I've got quarry marked but he's right because I've have enough fowl ups over the years to appreciate a dog being along. Except when I'm duck hawking with an anatum. No need for a dog ever with one of those birds.

Brad

[Sprout]

Having a good dog and watching it work is just as enjoyable as watching a perfect stoop!!! We rely on the dogs!!!

[Hatchero]

early in the season it's all about spotting, that would be because ducks are the game and dogs are not needed, uplands, when flown are usually off point. later in the season the game is all about dogs and game. it is a rare event to get a "road slip" as grouse are pretty hard to spot where i fly them. partrige are almost never spotted for a slip--again they are found in natural grassland and sage and as such are almost impossible to spot. reliable dogs make reliable falcons.
Jim

[Jack]

We don't have upland game birds here where I hunt, but we used to have a lot of bobwhite quail. Until the mid 70's anyway. By the 80's they were on the way out. I hunted them with an English Pointer and a female Cooper's hawk. Talk about fun hawking. They are gone now, so no need for a good bird dog. We do fly ducks a lot, and we do use a dog now. Time was that we didn't, but some of our ponds are pretty big, and we can not run the bank and force them off the water sometimes. Especially when they have spotted a falcon up there. I have been told that they will ignore the falcon if it is up a certain height, but that is ****. As long as they can see it up there they do not want to flush. Period. A good lab will jump right in and they can not deal with that, so they take off for blue sky. Since we took to using a dog last season, we have been having a much better time with it. I don't know if he will point, but he can scare the heck out of a flock of ducks.

Jack

[LanczSpringer]

Having a good dog and watching it work is just as enjoyable as watching a perfect stoop!!! We rely on the dogs!!!

In my opinion, (not that its worth much!) part of falconry is working the dogs.
I've not really found as much enjoyment in driving around for hours at a time trying to spot game. I've found it so frustrating actually because I know there must be so much game that humans oversee. Let a dog go and work the field they must be able to find lots more than we can using only our eyes and a pair of binos.

[Ben C]

Be interesting to see what the difference in the head count a flight style would be if you did one year spotting and then one year dogging and then one year doing both.

Pretty much a foregone conclusion......................:supz::supz:

[SSL]

Having a good dog and watching it work is just as enjoyable as watching a perfect stoop!!! We rely on the dogs!!!

In my opinion, (not that its worth much!) part of falconry is working the dogs.
I've not really found as much enjoyment in driving around for hours at a time trying to spot game. I've found it so frustrating actually because I know there must be so much game that humans oversee. Let a dog go and work the field they must be able to find lots more than we can using only our eyes and a pair of binos.

Sprout/Lanc,

50 % of Falconry for me is the dog, the training and working of a dog is just as much my hobby as the training and working of my hawk, infact in time terms the dog is probably more than 50 % and I keep her going all year, with the summer training.

I cannot knock spotted gamehawking (I havent done it or dogged 'gamehawking' for that matter) but I ask out of interest as 'spotting' doesnt really appeal to me, but I havent done it or seen it done. If I couldnt make a low-land gamehawk by purely 'dogging' I dont think its a branch of Falconry for me. Not that I intend making any branch changes just yet.

Be interesting to see what the difference in the head count a flight style would be if you did one year spotting and then one year dogging and then one year doing both.

Pretty much a foregone conclusion......................:supz::supz:

Do you think?

[Ben C]

Do you think?


Yep...doing both would win hands down in my area.

[MitchellBrad]

Be interesting to see what the difference in the head count a flight style would be if you did one year spotting and then one year dogging and then one year doing both.

Pretty much a foregone conclusion......................:supz::supz:

Back when we had huns the high killer was an anatum tiercel. The falconer didn't have a dog that year. Of course hawking huns in the snow is a whole different ballgame than without it.

[Ben C]

And hawking them here in the numbers they release them ain't too difficult either...:rolleyes::lol:

[Slippery Teal]

for partridge hawking 100% spotting for me, you can pick wether you want an in to the wind or down wind flush depending on where the partridges are lying. Same goes if there next to a hedge put a mark on them and fly them on the blind side of the hedge as not to spook them. I think spotting wild greys is a buzz and an art in its self.

For Pheasant hawking with longwings not had much experience with these birds but people i have flown with have used both tactics but pheasant have the tendancy to run where as wild greys once spotted are so predictable you have to stand on them to get them up hence the marker in the previous part

[CloudBase1664]

In your opinion then Dave, would you say its difficult to make a gamehawk without being able to spot for game?

In the UK around here?In a word yes I would .In the eighties in the UK some good falconers started to realise the benefits of spotting game ,For a start you could tell what the game was, exactly where they were and how many were there .You could also spot the rest of the field to see what if anything could ruin your flight.Because the quarry was not under pressure you could take your time in evaluating a 'set up' and engineering a flight to your hawk's advantage .These falconers,the likes of Martin Hargreaves and Paul Gillot et al consistently provided their hawks with quality 'set ups' and at a stroke raised the bar for lowland gamehawking .There were a lot more grey partridge then
and a lot less falconers nonetheless spotting game then,as now is no where near as simple as it seems .Most people ,even the most ardent 'doggers ' like to spot first to make sure they are not likely to 'fail to serve' before running their dogs and most spotters ,myself included like to fly over a dog at times .Spotters and doggers are really the same animal:lol:I am holding a fieldmeet on Sat 26th January.There are plenty of ducks,pheasants and partridge so we should see all aspects of lowland gamehawking.If you and Ben wish to come along to point and laugh PM me.

Dave

[Andrew Connor]

we are doing very well without a dog but we would do a lot better with one
atb
drew

[Slippery Teal]

In the UK around here?In a word yes I would .In the eighties in the UK some good falconers started to realise the benefits of spotting game ,For a start you could tell what the game was, exactly where they were and how many were there .You could also spot the rest of the field to see what if anything could ruin your flight.Because the quarry was not under pressure you could take your time in evaluating a 'set up' and engineering a flight to your hawk's advantage .These falconers,the likes of Martin Hargreaves and Paul Gillot et al consistently provided their hawks with quality 'set ups' and at a stroke raised the bar for lowland gamehawking .There were a lot more grey partridge then
and a lot less falconers nonetheless spotting game then,as now is no where near as simple as it seems .Most people ,even the most ardent 'doggers ' like to spot first to make sure they are not likely to 'fail to serve' before running their dogs and most spotters ,myself included like to fly over a dog at times .Spotters and doggers are really the same animal:lol:I am holding a fieldmeet on Sat 26th January.There are plenty of ducks,pheasants and partridge so we should see all aspects of lowland gamehawking.If you and Ben wish to come along to point and laugh PM me.

Dave

Good post Dave

[CloakDaggerTiercel]

In the UK around here?In a word yes I would .In the eighties in the UK some good falconers started to realise the benefits of spotting game ,For a start you could tell what the game was, exactly where they were and how many were there .You could also spot the rest of the field to see what if anything could ruin your flight.Because the quarry was not under pressure you could take your time in evaluating a 'set up' and engineering a flight to your hawk's advantage .These falconers,the likes of Martin Hargreaves and Paul Gillot et al consistently provided their hawks with quality 'set ups' and at a stroke raised the bar for lowland gamehawking .There were a lot more grey partridge then
and a lot less falconers nonetheless spotting game then,as now is no where near as simple as it seems .Most people ,even the most ardent 'doggers ' like to spot first to make sure they are not likely to 'fail to serve' before running their dogs and most spotters ,myself included like to fly over a dog at times .Spotters and doggers are really the same animal:lol:I am holding a fieldmeet on Sat 26th January.There are plenty of ducks,pheasants and partridge so we should see all aspects of lowland gamehawking.If you and Ben wish to come along to point and laugh PM me.

Dave

Good post Dave,

Most gamehawkers that I know including myself do a bit of everything though the season (in varying proportions) - spotting and dogging on different quarries and enjoy it all.
As you alluded to previously its not as simplistic as people falling into one camp or the other.
Spotting partridges does seem to have raised he standard of partridge hawking from what Ive seen or heard.

Nick

[Ben C]

Dave:

Don't you mean 'spot' and laugh........:supz::supz::supz:

I ****ing love too mate. PM SENT

[SSL]

In the UK around here?In a word yes I would .In the eighties in the UK some good falconers started to realise the benefits of spotting game ,For a start you could tell what the game was, exactly where they were and how many were there .You could also spot the rest of the field to see what if anything could ruin your flight.Because the quarry was not under pressure you could take your time in evaluating a 'set up' and engineering a flight to your hawk's advantage .These falconers,the likes of Martin Hargreaves and Paul Gillot et al consistently provided their hawks with quality 'set ups' and at a stroke raised the bar for lowland gamehawking .There were a lot more grey partridge then
and a lot less falconers nonetheless spotting game then,as now is no where near as simple as it seems .Most people ,even the most ardent 'doggers ' like to spot first to make sure they are not likely to 'fail to serve' before running their dogs and most spotters ,myself included like to fly over a dog at times .Spotters and doggers are really the same animal:lol:I am holding a fieldmeet on Sat 26th January.There are plenty of ducks,pheasants and partridge so we should see all aspects of lowland gamehawking.If you and Ben wish to come along to point and laugh PM me.

Dave

Thanks Dave,

An interesting post and very kind offer. Unfortunately I've missed out on alot of hawking recently and this month will be the same for various reasons, so I really owe my time to my Goshawk, in different circumstances I would have been there in a shot.

Steve.

[CloudBase1664]

Dave:

Don't you mean 'spot' and laugh........:supz::supz::supz:

I ****ing love too mate. PM SENT

OK Ben I'l PM you details nearer the date.

Dave

[Falcons7]

Im a big fan of flying over a dog ,provided its good at its job and use one when ever possable. Sometimes its not practable or even relyably possable ie short winter wheat etc so then the bins get used.
I get almost as much a buzz at seeing the dog skid to a point as I do actually flying but thats me, am always happy to fly at spotted game and understand why people do it ,theres no dog to train and look after as well
jeff

[Slippery Teal]

How you doing Jeff, happy near year mate. SUPER BOB :supz::supz:

ATB Ryan

[Falcons7]

All the best mate, everythin hunkydorry old chap



How you doing Jeff, happy near year mate. SUPER BOB :supz::supz:

ATB Ryan