# Orange Army at Grand River



## BaddFish (Jun 20, 2009)

I tried to meet my friend at the headquarters on 534 at 7:00 Thursday morning..... couldn't even get into the parking lot. CRAZY.

Drove around to Clark road and same story but while we were standing around at the trucks trying to figure out what we were doing- the army of 25-30 guys walking in a line....flushed a pheasant and it flew towards the road... It was quickly shot but even after it was crumpled and falling, shots were still going off!  

We ended up going to private property.
I drove back through off 88 and only saw one truck at 10:30...
Maybe next year I'll just sleep in and avoid the 30 man hunt lines and start at 9 or so.

A friend of mine told me on Saturday that his brother-inlaw's friend had bought a German pointer and had it professionally trained, etc.. Took it to a pheasant hunt on Turkey day(he lives in Champion so we are assuming Grand River)
Apparently, some hunter accidently shot and killed the dog!
Terrible... I was wondering if anybody heard about it on here? 

Good luck and stay safe.


----------



## Snakecharmer (Apr 9, 2008)

That is sad... I would be so pissed. How can you confuse a dog with a bird? Guy should lose both his license and his gun.


----------



## steelmagoo (Apr 13, 2004)

Awful about the dog. I never hunt the first day of the releases. Not my cup of tea, dealing with too many people. I like late afternoons, especially during football games a week or two after a release. GO BROWNS, GO STEELERS, GO WHOEVER, just go away. My dog will find 'em if they're there. Belle and I found a rooster and a woodcock at GRWA late Sunday afternoon. Got the woodcock, hit a tree instead of the rooster. We'll be back after deer gun season and get another one or two. Ohio sucks for the upland hunter. I can remember my buddy Dave and I putting up grouse right around where the gun range is at Grand River (late '70's), without a dog. That was an unfortunate place to put the range, and now they've taken away the only public dog training area in NE Ohio at Grand River. Sitting on my ass waiting for a turkey, duck, or deer doesn't appeal to me nearly as much as walking and wingshooting over a gun dog. Awful about the dog getting shot, if true.


----------



## steelmagoo (Apr 13, 2004)

snake, probably the dog was shot because someone decided to shoot birds whether flying or not, on the ground. Not sporting, not safe.


----------



## hillbilly gourmet (Sep 5, 2010)

I was at Darke Co. Wildlife Area my yellow male was on a pheasant. A group of hunters were walking are way. I tould them that i had a per of dogs hunting and one of the hunters shoots at a pheasant on the ground that my male pointing at. I was reeded to shoot that a$$ hole. My dogs are more then dogs there are kids. I do not care you shoot the bird but let my dog do his or her thing when my dog brings me the bird, I will give the bird to it's owner. I like working my dogs more then shooting the birds thats a bounes to me. The hunter did not get the bird he missed it ran a cross the road on private land. There was 4 of use and we got seven pheasant in 2.5 hrs. I got my two in the first 75 yrd of hunting. I needed to get some pic. next time.


----------



## buckeyebowman (Feb 24, 2012)

Oh man! I can't stand a damn "ground swatter"! If the bird don't fly, then it don't die! Pure and simple. The problem with some of these idiots is they upland bird hunt one day a year, Thanksgiving, so they are bound and determined to get a pheasant by any means possible. Also, they have absolutely no idea how to hunt birds with dogs. Plus, we're all crowded together on these public hunting areas, and I've seen examples of both good and poor sportsmanship there. A couple of instances;

My friends and I used to hit Berlin on Thanksgiving morning, one of the fields right on 224 east of the lake. This was back when 9:00AM was the starting time. Well, there's a big gang of us standing around wondering who had the magic watch, and we all decided to head in. As usual, some guys start pulling out ahead trying to get to the birds first. Next thing you know, we're all racing through the field and I know we're walking past birds as nobody brought dogs. I look at a sapling with a cluster of weeds around the base and think, "If there's not a cockbird hiding in there, the world just doesn't make sense!" I take two steps toward it and a big rooster flushes! I shoot and hit it with a good shot. As the bird is falling a kid fires, BAHHWOOOOMMMM!!!! He had to have been shooting goose loads because that poor pheasant exploded like a down pillow with an M80 stuffed in it! The kid comes running, yelling "I got it! I got it!" Who knows? It might have been his first pheasant ever. My buddy comes up beside me and whispers "You shot that bird, didn't you?" I said yes, but I didn't want it now. Let the kid try to eat that shot riddled thing! 

Another time these people brought two Springer Spaniels. Show dog Springers by the look of them and, as it turned out, obviously completely untrained! Well, they turn these dogs loose when we head in and the next thing we know they're 150-200 yards out, running wild through the field, and roosters are boiling up left and right! Man, were we pissed! Then these clowns couldn't round up their dogs! One dog came running by us and the guy yells, "Hey buddy, catch that dog for me would you?" I shot him a look and kept on walking. Ignoramuses! Apparently, they didn't think that training bird dogs was that important.

To be fair, I've also seen some good sportsmanship out there, and more recently than the disasters of the past. This was in the big fields off 225 west of the lake. We were hunting up the length of the first field, coming back in the direction of the parking area, and we had dogs out working. A group of guys wanted to cross in front of us to work another field, but had seen the direction we were working and had held up. Our dogs weren't making any game right then so, rather than make them wait, we called the dogs to us and waved them across. They smiled, waved and hollered "thank you". We said "no problem". There also seemed to be a few more folks there who had dogs and seemed to have an idea of how this upland hunting thing was supposed to work. 

There's still way too many knuckleheads out there, though!


----------

