For years I wondered how much ground my GSPs cover during a day-a-field. Yesterday, I found out exactly. I fitted my 9 year old [censored] with a harness and duct taped my Garmin 450T to the harness and then turned the tracking feature on. The Garmin records time and distance every 1-3 seconds. While I covered 2.1 miles, she covered over 6 miles during the 2 hour hike. Just an interesting fact I thought I'd share.

Garmin makes a Gps tracking collar for the dogs. On a typical full day hunting I will flip the collar back in forth between two dogs typically, rotating who hunts. The dogs will typically cover close to 30 miles! Granted this isn't one dog doing all that but its still pretty impressive!

i usaly run 3 gsp when i am out hunting and usally on a saturday i cover about 10 miles and they cover between 30-80 miles

I have seen the GPS locating collars but, havent been able to justify the expense- so I took the down/dirty approach. Worked pretty well actually - as an experiment - to answer that long un-answered question about covrage. My girls are getting older now, so 80 mile days now only happen their dreams. These high tech facts gives some credibility to being 'dog tired' after a hunt.

I was amazed when I got my garmin 320 this year for my 1 year old brittany. He wanted to run big all year and it was challenge to keep him close, so I got it for peace of mind and to help with his training. (it's great to know your dog is on point 80 yards away and not ignoring your whistle. On two separate grouse hunts he covered 26 and 28 miles. He was great in the house after those hunts.

It is amazing how far they go. The most I have ever seen one of my pointers go in a day was on a grouse hunt in Michigan in 2007. I walked just over 8 miles based on the Garmin assuming a straight line on the dogs field pattern during the day. He went 43 miles being on the ground all day. That is when I started taking five to nine dogs on extended trips simply because I didn't realize how much work they were doing if on ground all day.

Some of those numbers are amazing...but not surprising. I always figured but never knew how many miles they went. On a normal grouse hunt, I will normally go 6-10 miles so I always figured my setters probably ran a marathon in a day. Also, these dogs are not running on nice level ground. Most of it is either uphill or down and over rocks and logs...truly amazing animals.

Rabbit hunt in NH recently, dog ran a rabbit (snowshoe) probably around an hour give or take a little. Guide said 4.1 miles according to garmin tracker collar and gps. Just on one drive. Some pretty thick woods too, since we were close to Maine and Canada.

Gentlemen,
I own 6 Grouse dogs because long ago I was taught how much
ground our dogs really cover on each Grouse hunt,
over a 3 hour period, if you have a serious Grouse dog the dog will cover approx 10 miles minimum. You the hunter might walk 5-8 miles the dog 10 - 15 miles with no problem.
All this ofcourse depends on the weather and how spread out the birds are.
Pine Creek/Dave