I have some pictures from back over the years. I guess you could call these a history of a professional grouse dog trainer. I hope I will be forgiven for taking some liberties with the years. I have a couple of photos from way back but most of mine will be from the 70's and 80's. Before that no one seemed to think to much about taking pictures of small game.
The first picture is of my grandfather and and an uncle. I belive the photo of taken on the Rohrsburg, Pa General Store porch around 1900. I am not exactly sure of the location or dates but my mother thought that these were correct.
The second is my mother and her family on a small game hunt in the 1930's
I know this oneis from the mid 70's. It was taken on a hunt in Maine
This was one of the greatest grouse dogs that has ever been in this kennel. Jake was owned by a very knowledgeable grouse asnd woodcock man from Bernardsville, NJ. Tony knew more about setters and grouse and woodcock than many of the supposed experts in the field. There is a member here who owns a young dog with Jake back a few generations in his pedigree. Roscoe, seems, from what I read and see pcitured on HPA, to be following in Jakes footsteps.
Another Jake photo
One of my early grouse trial dogs who was also gunned over
Mt. Getna's Magic. Maggie was the greatest grouse dog ever in this kennel. She had All Age wins on the circuit and I personally killed more grouse over this dog than I probably did in the rest of my life. I saw her do things with birds in the woods that are unbelievable. Of course, by the time she was 4 years old she had seen over 1000 grouse by my notes at the time. It was good that there lots of birds in those days. As you see in the photo she had a roading harness and an early e collar on. I ran her with the harness dragging log chainsfor over a year to slow her up enough to get her to point the first grouse. But after she did and hunting season opned and we shot a couple grouse for her the light came on and she just got better and better for the rest of her life.
One of my friends and customer who will fremain nameless is holding his grouse champion Star's Misty Ghost. Misty won the Pa Ch and was runner up in the Grand National. She saw a lot of birds with us here at Knob Mtn. We used to sit around at trials and Rob, her owner, always told everyone that I hadm ore birds than anywhere that heahd been in grouse country.
This guy wasn't particularly a grouse d og but he was an excellent woodcock dog. His name was Tec and he lived in NJ. HIs owner hunted woodcock with him but ran him in one trial and sent me t his photo. He and I were both proud.
Another Maggie photo along with a lifetime friend who still comes to Pa and hunts with me every year. We are now both in our mid 60's and hope for many m ore years of chasing the birds and dogs.
One of my old time hunting partners after we returned from a several day trip up north.
A 16 ga LC Smith that I used to have. For those who care about this stuff it was on the FW frame with factory 26 inch barrels. The gun weighed 6 lbs 2 oz and was choked cylinder and modified.
I coukld [probably put HPA over its bandwidth with photos but I guess I ahve to stop somewhere. Its been a lotof fun over the years and a lot of hard work. I believe that I h ave mostly worked as a pro trainer for over 35 years because it has left me work and develop so many great dogs. The ones that were pictured here are just a very few of the many that pass thorugh my kennel. A couple were really great ones.
Tom