Steve Snell’s Gundog Blog

Jump to Comments

I am addicted to my Garmin Astro.

This may seem like an odd subject to discuss from someone that sells the Garmin Astro, but it is an issue that I have and I need to work it out.

The Garmin Astro changed the way I hunt.  It allows me to run dogs in places that I would not have before it came out.  It lets me keep up with more dogs at a time.

The Garmin Astro lets me buy bigger running dogs and not worry about them.  It removed an enormous amount of stress from my hunting.  Before it you never knew once that dog went over the hill if you would ever see him again. 

It’s one of my favorite dog devices that we sell and I am addicted to it.

Now some folks might not see this as a bad thing, but I have some concerns about it.

I grew up running bird dogs with bells.  I was well trained in the art of locating a dog on point that was making no sound at all.  The trick here was knowing the last place you heard the bell and how long it had been since you last heard the bell. 

This was a skill that you really had to practice to be good at and I was pretty darn good at it.

Once we started hunting Texas, we changed over to running dog beepers.  The advantage with beepers was that you could tell if the dogs were running on on point since the beeper made a different sound once the dog stopped moving.

This was better than bells but it only worked if you could hear the beeper.  The wind in Texas really made that an issue.  I also never really liked the listening to beepers when I hunted.  It really ruined the experience.  Nothing like the sound of a garbage truck backing up while you are out in the field.

After losing one of our dogs for about four days one trip, we moved to Dog Tracking Collars.  Tracking dogs by telemetry was much better than beepers or bells but it was hard a hard skill to master and I never was great at it.  I could always find my dog no matter the range, but I was never 100% comfortable with the art of dog tracking with telemetry.

Garmin fixed all these issues with the Astro.  It was perfect.  It told you where your dog was and what he was doing.  You could track multiple dogs over a pretty standard bird dog range.  It was silent and dead on accurate.  The Garmin Astro was everything I wanted in a tracking system.

This is a good thing? Right?

Well, yes and no.  It’s a great thing and I’ll never run a dog without a GPS tracking system (until something better comes along) but it has destroyed my ability to locate a dog without it.  I don’t blame the Astro for this.  I have just come to rely on it too much.  It’s my crutch.  It works too well.

I have lost the skill to “know” where my dogs are without some kind of electronic help.  I don’t have to keep up with their location like I did before. The Garmin Astro works too well….

I am going to fix this.  I will spend more time keeping up with the location of my dog and not jump to my hand held unit every time my dogs are out of site.  It will take some practice and self control, but I will get my dog location skills back.

The Garmin Astro works too well….

Steve

Gun Dog Supply