Description:

"Black Jack" is a VERY nice 3 year old Elhew male. He was originally broke steady to wing and shot however I have been pushing him to go on the flush because I’ve been hunting wild California quail and Chukar with him. He’s had 2 full seasons of wild bird hunting in the southwest. He has hunted California quail (valley quail), chukar, Hungarian partridge, pheasants and yes, I’ll admit it, Sage hens. His natural retrieve is so nice that he will even retrieve a sage hen (of course I wasn’t real sure what to do with it. LOL).

He’s on our string of dogs out here in California until the seasons open up back in the Midwest, so he gets a ton of work. Black Jack is uncharacteristically tough for an Elhew dog (not as in a fighter, he’s kenneled with another male with no problems). I just mean tough in the field. We hunt some crazy tough conditions out here that are sometimes very hot, always bone dry and steep and rocky. He pounds through this canyon like it’s just an afterthought (which is pretty darn impressive if you’ve ever hunted in these conditions).

Black Jack is an absolute work horse. He has a work ethic that just never, ever quits. I really think that if I didn't wear out in these tough conditions and have enough to go back and take a break, he'd probably hunt until he fell over. Not very often do you find a dog with this much heart. He will hunt all day for you and come right back out the next day and do it again. Not many people can truly comprehend how hard that really is when hunting these mountains out here in Nevada. There's a reason there is a ton of birds here and it's because most people don't have drive themselves to push through these mountains all day. It is literally the toughest hunting conditions in the lower 48 states, bar none (and I have hunted pretty much everywhere).

Black Jack traverses these mountains all day long. Here's an example of how much ground these dogs cover. The Garmin said that we walked 2 1/2 miles on our first hunt this morning (that's me carrying the GPS unit/receiver). Black Jack logged 8.37 miles on the same trip. That's up and down some of the steepest terrain imaginable. At one point, he was on a covey of Chukar and I was running so hard to keep up and get there in time, that I missed with both barrels. I don't even know if I was aiming at a bird or the pretty pink elephants flying around from being so far past exhaustion that I had to sit down to recover. I couldn't even get right back on the singles, that is how hard these dogs hunt in this terrain. It is truly amazing.

Dog for dog, on wild birds, Black Jack is as good as any of the best pointers around (probably on pen raised birds too but I don’t hunt them so I can’t say that I would know).

For more info contact Shady Meadows Gundogs at 805-736-3869 and ask for Shawn or e-mail shadymeadowskennel@ckt.net