The Dog Man
fall turkey hunting with dogs has a long history in Appalachia, especially in the hills of Virginia, and no one knows more about it than Virginia cattle farmer John Byrne. His quest for the perfect turkey dog began more than 30 years ago.

"I've been breeding cows all my life, and the principles are the same,-¿ Byrne says. "You compound the genetic qualities that you want, eliminate the genetic qualities that you don't want, and with patience and perseverance, sometimes you arrive at where you want to be. For turkeys, you want dogs that will trail and bust flocks-"but above all bark on the break.-¿

A cast-off Plott hound bitch started Byrne's journey. "One day while I was running Inky, I saw her put her nose to the ground tracking turkeys across some Virginia ridges, putting birds in the air as she went,-¿ he explains. "I bred her with a lemon-and-white pointer, and we got four dogs out of it-"one female and three males. The female, Sue, was the only one who showed any promise. We then bred her to a English setter, a field-trial dog named Jack.-¿ Jack proved to be the next piece to the turkey-dog puzzle. "Nobody could make him point and they were going to get rid of him, so I asked for the dog,-¿ says Byrne. "The first flock of turkeys he got after, he busted. I bred Sue to Jack and got Junior-"we were in business.-¿

Junior, the one-quarter Plott, one-quarter pointer, and one-half setter cross, was bred to a number of dogs, and the rest is turkey-dogging lore. Today Byrne dogs are seen by many to be the best in the fall woods.

Whereas schooling a typical bird dog involves painstaking and often expensive work, training turkey dogs-"or at least Byrne dogs-"doesn't take all that much. I've hunted with my Byrne dog, Jake, for nine seasons. "You just need to give him access to turkeys,-¿ Byrne told me. "Just let him get his nostrils full of turkey scent, then let the genetics kick in.-¿

That very mid-January afternoon, I opened the front door of my hunting camp to see four gobblers standing in the driveway. The toms high-stepped toward the woods through a foot of freshly fallen snow and were out of sight within seconds. Heeding Byrne's advice, I opened the door again to let Jake scent them. I'll never forget the sight of that pup plowing his way through the powder in an effort to catch up. He never did, nor did he ever quit. After following Jake for several hundred yards, I picked him up and brought the exhausted little guy back to camp, where he slept next to the woodstove for the night. Jake's determination astounded me.