the Dogs are the Treat
“More fun than the hunting is watching the dogs,”
says Genteel Plantation’s long-time caretaker, hunting
guide, quail raiser and dog trainer, Ricky Kelly.
“They’ll be in a dead run and they’ll smell that bird …
all of a sudden they realize they’ve run by a bird and
they’ll skid around and when they do they stop like a
statue and they won’t move. And they’ll stay there ‘til
I find them. They won’t even turn their heads.”
Tails up, Kelly says the dogs will move their eyes
back and forth when they
hear him coming.
“If my dog sees that
dog pointing, then he
stops and points that dog.
If there’s three dogs, then
you’ve got all of them
pointing the lead dog. It’s
the treat,” Kelly says.
The lead dog is the dog
that smells the bird first. The position of the other dogs
is called backing, or honor. He’s honoring the other
dog’s point, or backing the other dog. Their innate
instinct is to point, but Kelly trains them to back.
“In the beginning of the season, I take three dogs at a
time, trying to get them in shape more than anything else.
When we go hunting, they don’t walk around, they’re
running. They’re all over here and over there and I’m
trying to keep up with where they’re at all the time,
because when I lose them, they’re pointed and they’re not
supposed to come when they’re pointing,” Kelly says.
Walking four miles, five miles hunting, he estimates
the dogs run as many as 15.
“When I finally got everybody in shape, I cut it
down to two dogs. It’s easier for me,” Kelly says. “The
bird will stay put most of the time because he knows
the dog is there and he’s hiding in the bushes. They’re
not dumb. Especially after they’ve been hunted once.
They wise up pretty quick.”
Raising more than 600 quail this summer, Kelly says
they’ll shoot about 1,000 during the season.
“We eat every one of them,” Kelly says. “They all
get cleaned and they all get eaten. We cut them up the
back, that way it lays them open. You clean them out
and leave them whole, legs, everything, breast. And if
you leave the breastbone from the backside, it makes
them lay flat in the pan so it doesn’t stand up. Because
Ricky Kelly with Lucy. that way it’ll cook evenly.”
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One of Genteel’s farm
raised bobwhite quail.
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