Does anyone here hunt upland birds with Chessies? I have 3 Chessies and use them on pheasant exclusively. I also have Springers (and have bred them for 18 years) and have found the Chessies to perform on a par with the Springers. The Springers are able to penetrate some of the really nasty cover a little better than the Chessies, but the Chessies mark better and are a little better overall at the retrieving end of things. Springers are quite a bit more animated and flashy, but the Chessies do more naturally and require less training to keep them under control (hunting within shotgun range). I train my Chessie pups from the time they are little pups just as I would a Springer.

stonebroke,
I've never used the Springers or the Chessies...I breed and hunt with English Pointers....I find that they can do it all in the bird field for me...from pointing to retrieving.

Post some pictures of your dogs if ya can. Hope ya have a wonderful bird season...

Here's one of my Chessies, Turk.

Here's Tonka, my older female Chessie.

I've also trained them to find and retrieve shed deer antlers. This is my other female, Tiki.

I don't see very many Pointers here in our part of Montana. I see a few German Shorthairs, English Setters, and Brittanies, but it's pretty rare to see any of the other pointing breeds. The problem with the shorter haired breeds here is that if they get wet when it's cold, they suffer. The area I hunt is a network of irrigation ditches, sloughs, creek bottoms, beaver dams, etc. so a dog is constantly wet. That's why I went to the Chessies several years back. When it gets down to zero (or below), I've not found a breed that can handle those conditions better than a Chessie.

Those are some neat pictures...looks like that one bird wasn't dead yet...again...neat pictures thanks for posting them.

The pheasant in the pictures was dead. It was one I'd kept for training in my freezer from last fall. It does look alive in the picture though.

I've seen just about every breed of dog used to hunt pheasants. Sometimes a good old mutt works as well as anything!