First Hunt - GSP/Lab

G'day Team. Bit of a write up here.

I've been training a 10 month old GSP/Lab called Flo to be a deer indicating dog. The training has been going really well for the most part. All the hunting specific stuff is set up well, but behaviorally she's been a bit hyperactive, especially when my wife is in charge. Stuff to continually work on but she's been getting bored and frustrated with the usual training routine and has shown impressive focus and control on scent work so I took her for her first hunt. We went to a spot where I knew it was highly unlikely we would come across other people/dogs and there are good deer numbers. I hunted her on the longline so that I could keep 100% control, recognising she's still young. It was heaving with rain when we started walking but the forecast was to clear early/mid morning.

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The hunt went as well as it could have gone. Flo maintained good range 99% of the time, and when she did range out, she continually looked back to check up on me. I gave her a little bit of room to work. As soon as we got into the areas where there were deer, she started tracking. It was obvious because (as with scent training) she slowed right down and her body language was vary cautious. We tracked these deer for over an hour before bumping them from 10m away in dense bush. They ran into a nasty, lawyer-laden gut so we left them.
We relocated to a ridge where the bush was more open and the wind was coming uphill. Flo immediately got onto a direct wind scent. We stalked slowly into the breeze with Flo indicating constantly. After about half an hour she fully locked up. I took a photo of her and spent about two minutes looking before I spotted two yearlings between some trees 50m ahead. I positively identified the target, raised the rifle, and shot straight over top of her. The deer staggered for 20m then dropped. Flo didn't move a muscle. We sat down for 10 minutes then slowly approached. Flo was apprehensive when we got to the deer, but I let her take her time and eventually she went in for a lick, a tug at some fur, and shortly after she got a nice hock to chew on.

This was definitely one of the most rewarding hunts I've been on and it's great knowing Flo will only get better with age and continued training.

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Epic man, looks like you've done well with her! The hypo part's probably the GSP...she should grow out of it.

That is very cool. And it demonstrates that its not just all about the dog. You need to know how to hunt too. Well done.

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Originally Posted by Tahr

That is very cool. And it demonstrates that its not just all about the dog. You need to know how to hunt too. Well done.

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Yes - I found that after my GSP bitch learnt the fact we needed to be a partner in crime to get the animal on the deck - she started teaching me more about "bush" hunting than I ever knew or could have ever learn't from another hunter.
The ultimate hunting in my book.
Well done
Hope you have plenty of country and opportunities to bring out the full potential in both of you

PS
Can I swap you my Bush for your Bush please :-(

Awesome you'll be happy with her.
Are you using the Blue print to train her?

Try and discourage ground scenting
Wind scenting is a must
It also puts you in the correct downwind approach (be careful though - as its a recipe for getting bush disorientated and with today's GPS gear - you will prob see you are doing loops not straight line advances)
A young Dog will mostly start with ground scenting which is normal and all good
But try and limit as time goes on and eliminate it fully unless tracking a wounded/shot animal
Limit it by pulling the Dog off the scent and moving in a circle and eventually the smart ones will also put it together that ground is history and wind is ahead and there - not now 2 gully's away that you unknowingly scared 10 mins prior :-)

nice work and looks like your gonna have a great dog there

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Originally Posted by Tahr

That is very cool. And it demonstrates that its not just all about the dog. You need to know how to hunt too. Well done.

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Ha! Not sure about knowing how to hunt, but it's fun giving it a nudge!

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Originally Posted by Sarvo

Yes - I found that after my GSP bitch learnt the fact we needed to be a partner in crime to get the animal on the deck - she started teaching me more about "bush" hunting than I ever knew or could have ever learn't from another hunter.
The ultimate hunting in my book.
Well done
Hope you have plenty of country and opportunities to bring out the full potential in both of you

PS
Can I swap you my Bush for your Bush please :-(

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Honestly, the nice open bush where I shot the deer was the exception to the rule in that spot. Was pretty grim before I got up on that ridge.

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Originally Posted by MAC

Awesome you'll be happy with her.
Are you using the Blue print to train her?

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Yeah have been mate. She hasn't completed the whole program yet but for various reasons I decided to hunt her earlier than what I had originally planned.

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Originally Posted by Sarvo

Try and discourage ground scenting
Wind scenting is a must
It also puts you in the correct downwind approach (be careful though - as its a recipe for getting bush disorientated and with today's GPS gear - you will prob see you are doing loops not straight line advances)
A young Dog will mostly start with ground scenting which is normal and all good
But try and limit as time goes on and eliminate it fully unless tracking a wounded/shot animal
Limit it by pulling the Dog off the scent and moving in a circle and eventually the smart ones will also put it together that ground is history and wind is ahead and there - not now 2 gully's away that you unknowingly scared 10 mins prior :-)

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Yeah good call. I don't want to actively discourage it because it's pretty useful in plenty of situations. But I'll definitely put emphasis on encouraging wind scent. And will continue concentrating on wind scenting in training.

For you reloading nerds.

7mm08 16" barrel shooting 120g TTSX with H335 going around 2900 fps. Shoots good groups at 100m but I'm not super happy with the consistency in velocity. Anyway, the deer was slightly quartering away, entry wound front shoulder, must have deflected slightly and the projectile (below) ended up lodged in the back femur. No significant meat damage but very good organ destruction and blood trail even from the entry wound resulting in a win for bush hunting with the TTSX.

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Go the GsP/Lab. My one is a bit hypo as well but they slowly grow out of it.

Awesome story

if you hadnt said 2900fps...looking at that I wouldve guessed 2000fps.... AWESOME writeup and awesome control on dog.....you are doing great. may there be many happy years together bring home the venison.
lab/gsp is a great cross...Misty was just that and as hard as nails,she did feel the cold.....a neopreme vest does wonders for dog who feels cold.
keep us updated with progress.

That's awesome Edunn :) she looks very eager to please in that sitting in the middle of the fern pic, Although she doesn't look convinced the deer is both of yours :)

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

if you hadnt said 2900fps...looking at that I wouldve guessed 2000fps.... AWESOME writeup and awesome control on dog.....you are doing great. may there be many happy years together bring home the venison.
lab/gsp is a great cross...Misty was just that and as hard as nails,she did feel the cold.....a neopreme vest does wonders for dog who feels cold.
keep us updated with progress.

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Hey mate, why do you say it looks like 2000fps?

Awesome start, dont get lulled into a false sense of security though. Seems the first few hunts can go well and then when they develop some confidence they can decide they don"t need the bumbling human.... just be aware and consistent and you'll have an awesome dog!

What charge of h335 is that? I'd agree with the others that it looks like a low impact velocity, I'd have expected far more expansion.

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Originally Posted by Hunty1

Awesome start, dont get lulled into a false sense of security though. Seems the first few hunts can go well and then when they develop some confidence they can decide they don"t need the bumbling human.... just be aware and consistent and you'll have an awesome dog!

What charge of h335 is that? I'd agree with the others that it looks like a low impact velocity, I'd have expected far more expansion.

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Yep, nah training never stops. And she's only young so well aware that I'll be intensive training for another year yet! Nice to have as good a start as I could have hoped for though.

When you say "far more expansion" do you mean to the bottom of the hollow part, or what? I don't know much about things, but I suspect asking a monolithic to expand beyond the hollow centre is probably about as good as asking Flo to pick up the rifle and shoot the deer for me too. Penetration depth would have been over 1m so maybe it just didn't hit any significant bone? I'm not sure.

According to my handy dandy notebook, that's 44.5g H335 (45g gives me a nice, sticky bolt on a warm day). I've shot out to 350 on paper with the drops suggesting approx 2900 is correct, but I do get big variations in velocity with H335 (AR2206H is more consistent). I was going to have a fiddle around with CFE223 until I realised that both CFE223 and the pills are currently on backorder.

Any thoughts/advice much appreciated - I'm pretty new to reloading.

justt looking at the expansion....if you look at advertisment for the mono projectiles...they have pretty pictures at different velocities.
not a huge deal...where monos work they work very well.....up close going fast as possible...why folk use lightest one for calibre they can get,within reason.... there will be one projectile that shines head n shoulders above the others when you take all into consideration.... eg in .270 if you push the 110grn fast as possible it will BEAT the heavier projectiles for energy out to 300ish yards...and out past there you start to run into expansion issues as they not going fast enough to expand as much as is desirable....

a load that ISNT giving sticky bolt on hot day....is better option...and that last fps doesnt mean squat in real terms...far better load that is accurate and going reasonably fast...
over your dog a soft and heavy load MIGHT BE better.... something like a speer spbt that will expand quickly and dump energy in hurry...or a round nose even better..7mm 08 isnt it??? the 7mm waters projectiles will work same for you as 30/30 ones do for .308 users....you load them DOWN a bit so closer to 30/30 speeds ,advantage is less noise and less recoil..... less powder has to equal less noise.... deer wont know the difference at bush ranges.
I like the heavy rn jobbies for in the bush.... my .308 didnt feed rn particularly well so had one up spout and splitzer of same 180grn with same recipy powder wise under it in mag.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

justt looking at the expansion....if you look at advertisment for the mono projectiles...they have pretty pictures at different velocities.
not a huge deal...where monos work they work very well.....up close going fast as possible...why folk use lightest one for calibre they can get,within reason.... there will be one projectile that shines head n shoulders above the others when you take all into consideration.... eg in .270 if you push the 110grn fast as possible it will BEAT the heavier projectiles for energy out to 300ish yards...and out past there you start to run into expansion issues as they not going fast enough to expand as much as is desirable....

a load that ISNT giving sticky bolt on hot day....is better option...and that last fps doesnt mean squat in real terms...far better load that is accurate and going reasonably fast...
over your dog a soft and heavy load MIGHT BE better.... something like a speer spbt that will expand quickly and dump energy in hurry...or a round nose even better..7mm 08 isnt it??? the 7mm waters projectiles will work same for you as 30/30 ones do for .308 users....you load them DOWN a bit so closer to 30/30 speeds ,advantage is less noise and less recoil..... less powder has to equal less noise.... deer wont know the difference at bush ranges.
I like the heavy rn jobbies for in the bush.... my .308 didnt feed rn particularly well so had one up spout and splitzer of same 180grn with same recipy powder wise under it in mag.

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Yeah I'm not too worried. That load has dropped a few animals now and groups consistently at 100yd, which is where I do most of my shooting with that rifle.

I'm not toooo worried about the noise with the pup. It's a heavily suppressed rifle and if I shoot 20 rounds a year over top of her then that's (hopefully) 20 successful hunting trips, which is certainly more than I usually get in a year. The reality is I'll be hunting her on the tops a lot of the time and usually on the tops I'll have time to put her behind me out of the way of ear damage.

all good ,you are definately on to a good thing with the dog....please keep posting.

Good stuff,love the photo with her & the deer ,she has the "l am going to need a bigger bowl "look . Good luck with the training & future hunts :thumbsup:

Second hunt for the pup this weekend. This time I thought I'd rip the Band-Aid off and do a fairly big country open tops overnighter. The trip starts with a 600m (that's vertical metres, not horizontal) climb to camp, then a further 100m to a glassing spot, then another 100m to stalk anything on those tops. So a pretty decent mission for a young dog but I thought "bugger it" and away we went.

We set up camp then got into a good area by midday Saturday. No stags seen but I pretty quickly spotted a couple of yearlings, which was good to see but the wind was not right and I couldn't figure out how to get onto them so we spent the rest of the day glassing. Flo even had a hoon on the binos. They were the only deer we saw that day and we were both pretty pooped, so we stalked our way back to camp for an early night.
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At first light we stalked to the tops with the breeze into our faces. We arrived just as the sun was hitting the high peaks and glassed for a couple of hours to no avail. The whole area was flooded in sun at this point so if anything was there I should have seen it. But, I had one last scan before we turned around to head back and picked up a couple of spikers making their way from the last shady spot down into the sun. They were 800yd ahead and 300yd to our left. The stalk was on. The wind was into our faces but more from the right so Flo didn't pick up any scent. We were half way into the stalk when the wind swung 180 degrees, which meant it was a race to get parallel or above the deer before they caught our scent. I put Flo in heel and we moved as quickly as possible to get to a shooting position. I put Flo on a stop and crept over a ridge 40m away to find one of the spikers 260 yds off and moving straight towards me showing no signs that it had caught our scent. But the time I caught my breath and set up for the shot, it was 200 yds away and feeding broadside. Flo knew something was up and she was whining a bit - I told her off as quietly as I could but it didn't make any difference, so that's something we'll have to work on. She's never done it before and I've done thousands of stop drills, so I think it was because the heart rate was going and it was all pretty intense. She was quiet enough that the deer never would have heard, so I set up, squeezed off the shot, and watched the spiker drop on the spot. We waited for 10 minutes, then kept climbing til we were 100m upwind of the deer. Flo immediately caught the wind scent and stalked in, indicating as we went. I took a picture of her (below) pointing the deer, when she got first sight of it, before she cautiously moved in for the usual blood lick and fur tug.
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Then ensued an 850m descent to the truck with a fairly heavy pack resulting in sore everything. This was another super rewarding hunt and great training for both of us.

Shit hot! Cheers for the write up. Looks like some nice otago country. I do miss it!

Well done....great when training all comes together.if you think it's good now keep it up and see what happens with your dog at years 5 and 6...like wine ,they improve with age