We found 17 coveys this afternoon in a little under a 3 hours. This is a new record for this pasture. We went out for an hour yesterday and found 4 coveys. Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday. This is Yeats with his front foot up. Payson is doing the shooting. Birds got up like popcorn from this bush.



We were headed to the windmill which you can see in the upper right hand corner, but birds got in our way;



Clifford had a pretty hot hand this afternoon. I remember him pointing 5 coveys. This is one of the;



This was a Garmin find;



Clifford again, with Cracker literally doing the honoring.




Does this beat football, or what?






This is ET whth his new free coat. I told him that the coat was worth about what he paid for it. OOPS!! I hunted with him all afternoon and just noticed his necktie;




Cracker is my wife's little baby. She keeps asking why I don't include more pictures of cracker. This is for you Paulette;



Martini time. Let's pick them up;





Tomorrow is a holiday. We may go back to get Yeats on a couple more coveys.

Eliot and Bill,

I cannot thank both of you enough for the invite today. And yes, it was amazing to move 17 coveys, truly 17 different coveys.

All of the dog work was superb and Yates is growing stronger every time I see him. It's always a lot of fun watching a young talented pup really start to turn it on.

Great company, great dogs and birds. Much more than I deserved.

Thanks to all

Chris

Below is a picture of Cracker from my album. She pointed at about the same spot yesterday, and that situation typifies our over the top action yesterday. We were headed south, and all three dogs were about where they should be. Cracker was to the southwest about 200 yards. Yeats and Clifford were to the southeast at about ten o'clock. Cracker's nose took her to a hard right into a more westerly direction. Chris had to make a hard right which left Yeats and Clifford behind us. We stopped to let them catch up before proceeding. I looked back, and both dogs were on point about a 100 yards apart. I went and flushed Cracker's covey, while Chris and ET shot over their 2 coveys. I think they shot. I heard shooting, but never saw any dead birds. Those were our ninth, tenth, and eleventh coveys.

William, just joined the group. Congrats on a great day. See ya online. Tom

Great pictures Bill. Looks like you are having a successful season in the coastal prairies!

Welcome to the forum. I remember the time that Levi got turned on up in a roost area up near Knox City.

This is Levi;

Registered Nbr: 1473006
Owner: THOMAS MITCHELL
Registered Name: TEXAKAN ELHEW LEVI
Callname: LEVI
Breed: English Pointer
Region: GCT
Sex: F
Date Whelped: N\A
Sire: CH ELHEW SNAKEFOOT
Dam: HANNA'S ELHEW LOU

Number of Times Open Champion: 1
Date of Championship: Saturday, April 22, 2000
Total Open Points: 35

Great pictures Bill. Looks like y'all had fun.

Looks like it was a good day to be a bird hunter. Seventeen coveys is the stuff that dreams are made of. I'm happy if I find two or three.

Thoumitch welcome to the forum.

Bill is right. All the stars must have been in the proper alignment
because the dogs were all on their best behavior and were just finding one covey after another. Like Bill said, we were headed to the windmill to give the dogs water and let them get wet and they took us in another direction. We had a pointer, a Britany and a setter and they resolved the age old question, which breed is best. The answer yesterday was all three were the best. Thanks Bill and Chris and all the dogs for a great day we will not forget. ET

Yeats in South Texas:

Great pics Bill and congrats on the fine dog work. ET didnt seem like he had to work that hard if he kept that tie on the whole hunt; birds must have been well behaved

That red setter looks as classy as any pointer I ever hunted with; if he keeps developing he will be great. Were these all wild birds? Makes no difference youall had a wonderful time.

These were all wild birds. This was our all time record on that pasture, but I don't think the pasture has more birds than ever. They're just easier to find. We're finding coveys this year where we could not hunt last year because of the excessive cover.

You think Yeats looks good on point, you should see him moving. He just turned 16 months old, and moves like a horseback shooting dog. Eliot bought him as a from a kennel which proclaimed 50 yard range. I held my breast till the first time we turned him lose. That little sucker started hunting big and backing at 3 to 4 months old. I've never seen him trail or tag another dog. He sees them hunting one side, and he'll take another. I've judged at lot of NSTRA trials. Most champions score in the eighties, on coverage. I would have scored him 90 on all the hunts I've seen. He's also a little water bug. When the other dogs are running dry, he'll lead them to water and come out wet.

Thanks for your answer; good to see there are some birds left after this horrible drought. This red setter is not an Irish setter is he; my understanding is these were developed more for hunting; they ruined the Irish many years ago making them for show dogs. thanks again db

Dobank -- No, Yeats is not an Irish setter. He is a red setter. You are correct, many or most American Irish setters no longer hunt, generally speaking. About 60 years ago, a fellow in Pennsylvania named Ned LaGrande decided to bring back to America the hunting Irish Setter. As I understand, he crossed a hunting Irish settter from Ireland with an English setter and did more breeding. He developed a dog that looks like an Irish setter except that it has short hair and is a third the size of an Irish setter. Yeats is from that line. Yeats is not as big as Bill's Cookie, who is an average sized female English pointer. The breeder is Celtic Farm and Kennels in Pennsylvania. ET1

Here you go. Also click onto the links from The Snipe hunters Forum. I did not preview them to see if they stipp opened.

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1994546/Red_setter_pup#Post1994546

Thanks for the information; makes me want to get another pointing dog. Good luck on the rest of the season. If youall take Yeates to a walking trial somewhere in the central texas area I sure would like to watch him. thanks again db

Yeats is one of the best natural retrievers I've seen. He picked up the first quail I ever threw for him. He had to be taught here. He'll now get back to you with the bird faster than Zorro, the lab. Much of the surrounding land is leased to duck hunters. We were running the dogs near a duck pond, that had been shot over that morning. Yeats ran down and caught a crippled teal, and delivered it to hand from about 200 yards away. I think ET has a picture of Yeats and the teal. Here's Yeats with the first quail I ever threw for him;

Thanks for an amazing story and all the pics. Good luck to all and have a wonderful rest of the season.

Great story and pictures Bill. Glad to hear someone has plenty of birds left.

Thanks for your kind words. It takes me over an hour to do a 10 picture photo essay. I started with over 30 pictures in my camera. It's the best way I know of to send people pictures of their hunting experience, and their dogs. They can right click and save the pictures from here.

Chris's wife took dozens of pictures the previous weekend. I got only 4 of them, which included the water in the dog box picture.

Please disregard this post. I like to save some of my picture threads on favorites. I'm simply adding the Oysters thread to the one I've already saved. It's the same pasture, and dogs.

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2974043/Quail_and_Oysters#Post2974043

Just adding another thread to my saved threads;

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/u...tem#Post2131207

Looks like a great time Bill...thanks for posting. Your wife isn't alone... I like Cracker too.

Some fried oysters do sound pretty good right now. So does a field just like the one in those pics.

Beautiful dogs and great pics Mr. Bill! Wonderful to hear stories that sound like the old days!