Mitch Hurt's Wild Bird Hunting

2009-01-23T09:08:00.000-08:00

Did a hunt near Encinal last Sunday. Found 19 coveys. Best day this year. Birds were moving even though nothing was different about the weather. No fronts coming in or anything. Saw birds everywhere I went. Wednesday and Thursday went back to the same ranch and found 5 coveys each day. I ran from 7 am till noon each day. The afternoons may have been better but did not stick around due to the heat. Leave today to go to Kingsville to hunt on the King Ranch on Saturday.

2009-01-20T19:47:00.000-08:00

South Texas is about average so far this year. Most days are hot and dry. Tough on the dogs. Arizona was great for Mearns Quail. The desert quail were spotty.

2007-06-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

My puppies at 5 weeks old. They love dead pigeons. They play with them and fight over them. Hard to get it away from them.

2007-06-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

Here is some of my boarding dogs. We have been full all spring. Way busier than I thought it would be. They get a free run 4 times a day.

2007-06-06T16:37:00.000-07:00

5 week old Pointer puppies eating one of their first meals. Have more snow coming tonight. Rain all day. Be glad you are not here. Puppies have been running around outside and liking it. Alredy hard to catch them.

2007-05-30T19:41:00.000-07:00

Puppies are 3 and 1/2 weeks old. Walking, seeing, hearing. They run to us now when we come in the room. Each alredy has his own unique personality. I've got all sold except 2 of them.

2007-05-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had a brief shower with thunder and hail. Every evening we get a shower we get a full rainbow across the valley from our house. Words or photos can't describe it.

2007-05-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

Booper ran in to some mean deer and they chased her all the way back to the truck. She was pretty scared. Never saw deer chasing a dog.

2007-05-28T13:05:00.001-07:00

Here's the photo dor the entry below.

2007-05-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

This is what it's like to live with a bunch of Pointers. No manners. I love it.

2007-05-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

West Texas this past February was not too bad concidering it was tough in South Texas for birds. I really loved the open country out there and the big ranches seemed limitless. Weather there can be tough very windy and cold on some days. We had good weather when we were there. 80% Blue ( Scaled) Quail 20% Bobs is what we found each day.

2007-05-26T05:53:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of Luther Young's hunting rig. He is a dog handler extroidinare on the King Ranch. His trucks will literally go anywhere. Easy to get on off of too. I went down to his place in March to run dogs with him and hang out.

2007-05-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

Here's what I have been doing the last couple of weeks. Helping this mama dog feed her 11 puppies. They are all doing well. She is out of Tatanka and Nellie, pretty much 100% Elhew. Bred her to Bo'Darc Fiddler's Image. Mike Logan owns him in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Mike is a very serious Pointer breeder specializing in foot hunting dogs so when I had the opportunity to breed to one of his best dogs I jumped on it. Can't wait to see how they turn out. They are 3 weeks old now.

2007-05-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

I hope I have finally figured out how to update my blog. Been a long time. Today it has snowed all day and I am inside with the dogs. They hate the snow just like I do. We have had some nice days last week but it was just to tease us. It's back to winter now.

2007-01-19T05:16:00.000-08:00

Not much hunting going on here in South Texas. Hope ther is birds on the King Ranch. Since there is no quail to photograph this photo is of a hawk nest I found in New Mexico.

2007-01-18T04:49:00.000-08:00

Not having your average South Texas winter now. Almost freezing temps and ice storms. Hope the remaining brids make it. We are not hunting much due to the lack of birds. Carol Sullivan is the owner of this fine Texas quail rig. He was here with Jay Evans last week. He also has a nice string of Elhew bred bird dogs. They found 10 covies one day. Which is the most covies I have heard of in one day here this year.

2007-01-16T18:37:00.000-08:00

A rare cold icy day in South Texas. No hunting today. Here is a photo of my camp in New Mexico. There was enough birds there to keep me around for three weeks. Got a good bit done with the five, one year old dogs that I have with me. It is all public land where I was and you can camp anywhere.

2007-01-15T05:06:00.000-08:00

Here is a photo of Cotton's last covey find. He died suddenly a few minutes later. He was 9 years old. I got him from a Elhew breeder in Texas as a 8 week old pup. He was a great dog on any species of bird that I hunted. He was also in the house most nights sleeping on the dog bed in our bed room. I will miss him as much as a great dog to live with as his versitility on birds. When we shot birds he had the uncanny ability to mark hit and wounded birds that fly out of our sight and run them down and retrieve them.

2006-11-18T07:41:00.000-08:00

Been on the road for a long time. Had a great season in Montana. Lots of covies every day. And limits of birds were common. Minnesota was good too. Finally the birds are coming back. South Dakota in the Pierre area was way worse than last year. We killed some birds but only one limit was had. I'm home now taking care of my 25 dogs and getting ready to head to New Mexico to hunt Scaled Quail. Then to South Texas where the reports are not good.

2006-09-06T05:39:00.000-07:00

Today is my first day off of the bird season. Last 6 days have been very good. Yesterday it only took us 5 covies to get our limit. Got good dog work on all of the covies. The covies were all large 18-20 bird covies. Fires are still burning like crazy. Can't see my neighbors house for all of the smoke.

2006-09-03T17:12:00.000-07:00

Today was the 3rd day of bird hunting for us in Montana. The birds are good. Hun coveys are large but they are spooky. 16 or more birds in each covey and I figure with all of those eyes looking at you one bird gets nervous and the rest get out of there too. Overall tough scenting conditions in the morning and gets better in the afternoon.

2006-08-26T16:13:00.000-07:00

Last week of fishing has been good for small trout and loads of Whitefish. The last day I had 2 guys who were determined to catch every Whitey in the river and may have come close to doing it. Ran dogs today with Dennis Kavanagh on one of our new leases and found 9 covies this morning. It is looking to be a banner year. Hope it turns out that way. Got my new dog boxes in from Minnesota tonight. Hope to have some photos of it tomorrow.

2006-08-16T17:04:00.000-07:00

Training dogs today I found 5 broods of Ruffs including this Blue colored immature bird. Never seen a blue Ruffed Grouse. Don't think a Blue Grouse, which are in the area, is his father but who knows. I probably found more Ruffs here today than I can find in Minnesota. They are dumb here though. This brood let me take all of the photos I wanted and they just kept eating. Forgot to tell about my experience the other day at lunch on the river. I tried to eat a Yellow Jacket that was trying to eat my sandwich. He got me right on the tounge. Really hurts. My teeth hurt. My head hurt. One guy was allergic to stings and his stories had me thinking I was going to choke to death but I survived.

2006-08-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of the Pine Creek Fire a couple of weeks ago. It was in some pretty steep stuff and they pretty much just let it burn. It appears to be out now. Made more Elk Habitat. I've been running dogs a good bit and still finding Mountain Grouse for them to point. Fishing is still good. We got'em today on Trudes all day long.

2006-08-11T16:13:00.000-07:00

The fishing has been great on the Yellowstone the last few days. Getting lots of Cutthroats all day on Trudes. The weather has cooled down but the wind has picked up. Annie saw a covey of 10 or more nearly grown Huns in our driveway. Hope that is a good sign of the bird population for this season. In the next week I'll be running dogs looking for Huns and Sharptails.