EVEN BROOK TROUT GET THE BLUES by JOHN GIERACH

Author:JOHN GIERACH
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Published: 2003-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

DOGS

THE MAIN REASON FOR A RECENT TRIP to Montana was to do a little trout fishing, but in the course of going around and seeing fishermen I also met some pretty snazzy bird dogs. Not that the people weren’t impressive in their own way, but you meet people all the time.

Now I don’t have much expertise in this area. All of the hunting dogs I’ve had were hounds who were into the well-worn hound program, that is, they chased things and bayed, period. If I wanted to follow along behind with a gun, doing my best to keep up, that was my lookout. You don’t “work” a hound, you just turn him loose and, if anything, he works you. I’ve never owned a bird dog and wouldn’t begin to know how to train one, but I’ve hunted with some fine ones and I’m just smart enough to know when to be impressed.

Naturally, I already knew Fancy and Poke, belonging to Carty, whom I stayed with for a while. Poke is a springer—a flushing dog—and Fancy is a Brittany, a pointer. These are both dogs I know well and have hunted with, so it’s always good to see them. Good to see Dave too, of course, although compared to the dogs’ his greeting always seems to lack enthusiasm.

Poke is an excellent springer: a smart, dedicated hard worker who will hunt until he drops, although he has a hardheaded or perhaps even slightly crazy streak. He’s been described as a little tank, also as a mad genius.

Poke can get pheasants out of the thickest cover and he has made some heroic retrieves in his day—dodging ice floes in swift, cold rivers to run down crippled ducks, that sort of thing. On the other hand, he has this tendency to escape from his kennel and get into all kinds of inventive trouble around the neighborhood. For some reason, he likes to crap on a certain neighbor’s back porch. He’d rather hunt, but if he can’t do that he has to do something. Poke has never been one to lounge around on the front porch looking rustic.

He will ride quietly and politely in his mobile kennel in the back of Dave’s pickup as long as you’re on a paved road, but as soon as you turn onto dirt or gravel he starts to howl. He will do this for miles, never getting tired or hoarse. A dirt road, you see, means you’re almost there, at least in the literal mind of a springer spaniel.

In other words, whatever you can say about Poke that’s good, something else comes to mind that’s not so good.

Dave is an outdoor writer specializing in bird hunting, so Poke has been trained to pose proudly and handsomely for photographs, holding anything in his mouth that you care to hand him: a grouse, a beer can, it doesn’t matter to Poke. In Montana this amounts to high-class entertainment.

I hunted with Fancy last fall in her first bird season. She was just eight months old then, but she was already ranging widely and pointing beautifully.

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