projectupland.com On The Go

Earlier this year we put together a survey to explore the Project Upland audience to help get a better read on our community. We thank all of you who took the time to answer our barrage of questions ranging from bird dogs, shopping habits, culture, and of course your favorite game birds. As you may have caught our recent look into the Top Three Bird Dog Breeds of 2019, this is a less controversial look into that world of favorites. From the cackling of a rooster to the covey rise of quail, these are the top 10 most popular game birds of 2019 in North America.

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My first look at the Stevens 555 over/under shotgun was at a media event in northern Minnesota. There were a lot of guns available to tinker with, including several semi-auto shotguns. Being a double-barrel fanatic, I immediately gravitated towards the new over/under from Stevens. It was the basic grade 12-gauge 555. I shot some clays with it, and it handled nicely. I wasn’t blown away by the look of the gun, as it was a pretty standard looking O/U.

Then I was told that there was an enhanced grade 555 in 20-gauge floating about, and I impatiently awaited my turn to handle it. I took it for a spin on the sporting clays course, and was more than impressed.

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I’m a card-carrying introvert. I tend to gravitate toward solitary activities and generally find social settings to be stressful. Perhaps the reason I love dogs so much is that I find it so much easier to interact with them! So it came as a huge surprise to me that one of the greatest things about getting into bird dogs was the new community that suddenly surrounded me.

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With its gigantic, fuzzy feet and snow-white coat, it didn’t take much creativity to name the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus). This interesting little mammal is a dweller of northern boreal forests and high-elevation mountain ranges. Being at the bottom of the food chain, they can be very crafty and are extremely agile. If you’ve never encountered them before or just want to learn more, this is the article for you.

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There’s no better way to incite a riot in the bird dog world than to talk about breed favorites. That’s why we do our best to cover all breeds and keep our personal preferences and opinions to ourselves. This article, however, is based on our community survey to see what the most popular bird dogs are amongst our upland world. There certainly remains a level of bias as Project Upland is a very new brand, our beginnings forged in the North Woods of grouse hunters — a factor most certainly contributing to the number one most popular breed in our community.

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Hunting scaled quail is different than hunting other quail of the semi-arid landscape. Scaled quail even though they may be in the same vicinity as Gambel’s and Mearns, and yes even Bobwhite himself, are unpredictable in where they will be. Many bird hunters who go after cotton tops or blue quail, as they are commonly referred to in other parts, have a much more expansive range. The movements of scaled quail are akin to a dusty windswept current drifting across the desert grasslands or savannah – all around you unexpectedly, and the next moment gone.

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I grew up squirrel hunting. I killed my first Eastern gray squirrel when I was in the fourth grade, which made me what, 7 or 8 years old? I can see still that grey squirrel crawl out on a limb of a dead snag. I can hear my Dad say “Shoot at his head,” and I cocked that little Winchester Model 37 .410 and did just that. This was over 50 years ago. I may like squirrel hunting more now than I did back then.

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I knew that having a well-trained, versatile dog would improve our game recovery rate, which was one of the many reasons we’d decided to get a bird dog in the first place. I understood this from firsthand experience: I clearly remember shooting a duck in my first season and, after an hour of searching the reeds, I finally had to resign myself to empty-handed defeat. It stung to know that I’d taken a life and let it go to waste. I became hesitant to pull the trigger after that experience, being deeply afraid of another senseless waste.

But despite knowing that a dog would assist in my own bird recoveries, I had no idea how many birds we’d find that had been left behind by other hunters. In this past season alone, the pup found a couple of pheasants, a few mallards, and a snow goose – all either fatally wounded or freshly killed – and thankfully prevented from unnecessary suffering or waste. To me, that’s true versatility: bringing home game regardless of the circumstances.

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When I was researching the market and trying to find that safe kennel for my bird dogs, I came across Dakota283 at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas, Nev., in what I believe was their first year of production. I met the company’s founder, Greg Cronkhite, whose pride and passion for his product was evident — motivated traits that have carried Dakota283 to make great strides to the current day.

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The bottom line on the CZ-USA Supreme Field is that it’s a beautiful and solidly-built gun. And for a high-grade production alternative to bespoke guns, with the requisite price tag, I’d have a hard time recommending a better option.

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