For me, it is exactly two weeks until the woodcock opener. Whether you have a pointing dog, a flushing dog or a retriever, it is down to crunch time.

Time to reinforce all that training you’ve been doing all summer and polish up your partners for the quickly approaching season.

What I do at this time is try my best to run my dogs as much as I can, increasing the time the dog is on the ground in order to get those lungs and heart in gameday shape.

I have also been reinforcing my whoa training on my young britt for her second season in the field. I took her to the vet the other day and to my pleasure she said that Jazz is in awesome shape and has the heart of an athlete. Hard to believe having a lazy owner like me.

So this week I’ll open the safe and oil up the 20 gauge double, pick up my provincial deer permit (still waiting for an invite to a deer camp), renew my guide licence and attain my migratory bird permit. I’ll be checking my gear and replenishing my shell bag and counting the days until the fifteenth. All that’s left is to pray that there are a few birds to get my precocious pup into.

Good luck and happy hunting.