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When it comes to evaluating hunting dogs—whether for breeding purposes or bragging rights—the methods and philosophies are as varied as hunters themselves. What constitutes a “good” hunting dog, and whose opinion counts? One hunter’s ideal dog could be a terrible match for someone else’s style, and vice versa. 

Non-competitive hunt tests came about as an attempt to standardize the evaluation of hunting dogs at various levels. The tests aren’t perfect, but they at least provide a consistent measuring stick for assessing the natural and trained skills of a hunting dog. For the versatile pointing breeds, perhaps the most well-known system is the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association (NAVHDA) testing system.

NAVHDA offers four levels of non-competitive hunt tests: the Natural Ability test, the Utility Preparatory Test, the Utility Test, and the national-level Invitational Test. Each of these tests is designed to mimic real-life hunting scenarios and assess the dog’s ability to focus and complete a given task. While the Natural Ability test is focused on the innate skills of pointing, tracking, and swimming, the higher-level tests introduce more trained subjects such as retrieving and steadiness.

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The sinkbox was effective for waterfowl hunting because it was flush with the water’s surface and nearly invisible ducks and geese, particularly to the low approach of diving ducks. Its popularity began early, three decades before the Civil War, and it remained a waterfowling tool for over a hundred years. Originating on the North Atlantic Seaboard, its use eventually encompassed all the East Coast states, the Great Lakes, Salt Lake in Utah, and south to Texas and west to California. Market hunters were the first gunners to embrace sinkboxes, and it later spread to the more intrepid of America’s sport hunters. 

Now is the time to break in your boots for the season ahead. Learn more at IrishSetter.com, or try on a pair of Irish Setter's Wingshooters at your favorite retailer today.

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As a new owner of a versatile hunting dog, you’ve probably been asked about running in a natural ability or puppy hunt test. Some breeders may request or require that puppy buyers run in a test, while other owners may stumble into the puppy test through local club chapters such as NAVHDA or AKC. For owners of the German-registered breeds—such as the Deutsch Drahthaar, Deutsch Kurzhaar, Deutsch Langhaar, Kleine Munsterlander, and others—the puppy test takes the form of the Verbands-Jugend-Prüfung, or the VJP.

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I have a penchant for watching the weather. My childhood home had a large glass sliding door. It looked west across an open prairie for nearly a mile, and I would stare intently out as spring storms rolled in. My parents called for me to hide under the stairs the entire time, but I just couldn’t get enough. I still can’t, and I love to look at extended forecasts and predicted weather patterns. But now, I use my love for the weather to predict my favorite pastime: bird hunting. 

While habitat quality is still the main driver in game bird populations across the country, weather plays a close second. Most upland game bird species are short-lived, disturbance-dependent animals that rely on high reproductive output to grow populations. Favorable weather conditions and proper timing of these conditions often make or break a successful hatch. However, it’s not that simple. Certain species need favorable conditions at different times of the year than others, and even factors such as too much or too little rain can impact the same species depending on where it’s found in the country. 

Understanding these relationships and watching weather patterns many months in advance can give a hunter a leg up on what to expect for the upcoming season and what species to target from year to year.

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The Superposed was the last gun designed by John Browning, according to Ned Schwing’s opus, which is aptly titled The Browning Superposed: John M. Browning’s Last Legacy. Browning was an engineering genius, with many of his designs still in production today. His vision for this particular gun was for it to be a high quality but affordable shotgun, especially considering the price of European over-unders at the time. Browning’s design took into account weaknesses in other designs in this configuration, specifically looseness in the breech. He reinforced the hinge mechanism in order to ensure tightness for the long haul. Browning went to Fabrique Nationale (FN) in Liege, Belgium with his design, after having great success with the Auto-5 earlier. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t get to see the success of the Superposed; John Browning died in 1926. The design itself was finished by other members of the family, including refinements to both the ejector system and a few different trigger designs. The first Superposed wouldn’t be sold until 1931.

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Water spaniels are but a vestige of what they once were. Originally developed in the British Isles for waterfowl retrieving, today only three breeds remain. The American Water Spaniel and its close cousin, the Boykin, are joined by the Irish Water Spaniel as remnants of what was once a broad spectrum of water dogs. 

The origin of water spaniels can be traced to Great Britain. Similar dogs were developed on the European continent, such as the Épagneul de Pont-Audemer or the Frisian Water Dog, but their exact relationship to the true water spaniels developed in the British Isles—and later in America—is not exactly clear. 

What is clear is that a close relationship exists between water spaniels and the retriever breeds. Indeed, recent genome-wide analysis has revealed that the Curly-Coated Retriever and the Irish Water Spaniel are more closely related to each other than to any other breed. The Curly-Coated Retriever—the largest and perhaps oldest of the retrievers—is thought to have descended from crosses between the St. John’s Water Dog and English Water Spaniels, but apparently the amount of water spaniel blood in the breed was largely underestimated. Similarly, the Golden Retriever lineage that began with the Marjoribanks family in Scotland included crosses to at least two Tweed Water Spaniels.

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The two little hounds are whining loudly and scratching at the metal kennel doors. We had just pulled off the road down an overgrown two-track on a mostly forgotten plot of public land. It’s early December and most of the deer hunters have ended their season, so this little piece of paradise is all ours. Struggling to strap the GPS collars on the squirming beagles, I grab my single shot .410.  Its amber finish has been scraped away by the unforgiving miles of raspberry patches and young balsam fir.

As we walk down the path, the fresh snow shows tangles of tracks and droppings weaving through the multiflora rose of what was once a tilled farm field just a few years back before the state purchased the land. 

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The long-awaited Pointing Dogs Volume Two: The English and Irish Breeds by Craig Koshyk has finally hit shelves. Inside, readers can explore in-depth information about Pointers, setters, and the overall development of bird dogs across the pond. Koshyk features an entire chapter about Irish Red Setters alone; let’s take a peek inside.

It’s believed that Irish Setters are perhaps the oldest breed of setting dogs. “The spaniels that became setting dogs were in Ireland since at least the 16th century,” said Koshyk. It’s easy to imagine this gorgeous dog breed loping across vibrantly green hillsides in search of game, regardless of whether it’s in the 16th century or the 21st. 

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“Why on earth would anyone want to hunt crows?” I often get asked that question when people learn that I am an avid crow hunter during the whitetail off-season. Many hunters wonder whether or not American crow hunting is worth their time and if there is any benefit to it. My short answer to that is “Yes, absolutely!”

But why? How is crow hunting beneficial and why should hunters spend their time in the off-season chasing these pesky black birds?

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Sprinkled here and there throughout the sporting literature of the 19th century are references to Russian Setters. Despite the references and the fact that there were a number of dogs listed as Russian Setters entered into studbooks in England and the U.S., such a breed never actually existed. Be that as it may, for a while, sportsmen did breed and hunt over dogs that they called Russian Setters. From writings of the time, we can form a fairly clear picture of what those dogs were like. 

In terms of appearance, everyone agrees that dogs called Russian Setters had long, rough coats and facial furnishings. Edward Laverack once said that he once saw “a magnificent type of the Russian Setter buried in a coat of a very long floss silky texture; indeed he had by far the greatest profusion of coat of any dog I ever saw.” 

Now is the time to break in your boots for the season ahead. Learn more at IrishSetter.com, or try on a pair of Irish Setter's Wingshooters at your favorite retailer today.

Read more at projectupland.com.