I've had them point birds that far away.
The better the nose, the better.

Had the two year old out hunting woodcock yesterday enjoying the cool weather. A little background before I get back to the question. Still a work in progress but I’ve killed a lot of wild birds over him. He has been brought along hunting a lot of runners on the desert and spooky prairie birds. The goal has been a wild bird dog that points first scent, relocates on its own and can work running birds, and will stand his birds when they hold. So back to yesterday. We were in the woods in rank cover. We had been running a six month old pup. Bird densities were low and woodcock are almost always solitary. Those conditions show a good deal about what kind of hunt a dog has. I enjoy seeing it. Next drop we put Moon down. The birds were scattered. In advance of the cold snap we are in today they were buried up in the heaviest cover. Visibility was 30 yards maximum in the cover that held birds. In many places half that. My Garmin alerted me to Moons point 150 yards away. It took me about 5 minutes to loop around through the cover to come in from the front with the heavy cover between the dog and me. As I approached the heavy cover, with the dog still holding, the bird flushed from between us, 71 yards from the dog. I was caught flat footed and thought I must have bumped a different bird. About that time I looked at my GPS. The dog had came off point and went directly to the place the bird flushed from. Indeed he had it pointed at 70 yards. In that cover it was too far. In time and with more birds and experience, he will have to figure it out if he is going to be an upper echelon wild bird dog. Still a work in progress but none the less, I was impressed by the little boogers nose. His lack of polish handling birds and reading the cover in combination with a supreme nose cost me in that scenario. What do y’all say? Is there such a thing as a pointing dog with too good of a nose?