Using the TEK 2.0 in the Big, Wide Open

Hunting with English setters, English Pointers and Brittany spaniels provides me with a great deal of variety in my bird hunting. I want my dogs to cover a vast amount of ground, so I really let them stretch the horizon. Whilst some of them work more closely than others, I’m confident that all of them hunt much farther out than the average bird hunter is accustomed to. Depending on several factors, I may hunt three or four dogs at a time, or perhaps even five if I’m hunting with a mate or guiding with a client who also has a dog. Sometimes we’re hunting specifically for pheasants, sharptails or Huns, and other times we’re going after a mixed bag. But one thing that is consistent is that I’m always hunting in the big, wide open spaces of the Western states.

My home and training facility, Hideaway Kennels, are located in Calhan, Colorado. From there, I can travel north and west to get into good bird populations for personal hunting as well as guiding. As fun and exciting as this is, it also presents challenges. It isn’t hard to literally lose a dog in the rolling terrain of the prairie. In the past, if I lost sight of a dog, it often meant a lot of lost hunting time trying to locate him or her. Now, having used the TEK 2.0 product from SportDOG Brand® for a couple of seasons, I’m hunting much more efficiently.

Think of the TEK 2.0 as a security blanket that tells you where your dogs are, instantly, at any given time during a hunt. As good as some beeper collars may be, that’s an advantage they can’t even begin to match. I had an incident early last autumn while grouse hunting near Lewistown, Montana, that’s a great example. One of my pointers had travelled over a ridge top and out of sight. It’s not unusual to occasionally lose contact with a dog, but when I got to the ridge top I couldn’t locate him; he had seemingly vanished. I could have headed out across the open, hoping to see him locked up, or I could have travelled down a steep bank towards the river bottom.

Years ago, you might as well have flipped a coin and hoped for the best. This time I simply pulled out my TEK 2.0 Handheld and scanned the map, which showed my dog was right down in the river bottom and farther away than I ever would have guessed. What was scary was that the river ran right along a road, and had I not got there when I did, my dog could have ended up in great danger.

There is a temptation, I believe, for a hunter to become frustrated and give his dog an e-collar correction when the dog goes out of sight. That's not something you want to do, because your dog might be hunting hard and doing everything correctly. It might even be on point, and that's certainly not the time when you should be pressing the transmitter button. On that day near Lewistown, my dog was running hard and searching for birds, just as I had trained him. Circumstances and terrain simply meant we lost contact for a few minutes. It happens; it's certainly not something for which a dog should be punished.

The mapping feature not only shows you where you are, but you can use it to study the area you’re about to hunt so you can figure out how to travel it most efficiently. It’s really nice to not have to carry a separate GPS unit when I’m exploring a new hunting area. Now, with the same handheld that helps you keep tabs on your dogs, you can put together a hunting strategy before you ever leave your vehicle.

The TEK 2.0 handheld is much more than just a way to figure out the location of your dog. It’s a full-featured GPS that rivals the technology found in a laptop computer. Its capabilities are seemingly endless.

In my next article, I’ll tell you how I use some of those features, and which ones work particularly well out West.