Time to take stock. Guns cleaned, dog rested and doctored, photos posted on social media, and birds are in the freezer. Now, let’s take a long, unvarnished look at your just-concluded hunting season. Could it have been better? If you answered “no,” congratulations and send me some of your mojo.

If you muttered a subdued “yes,” here are a few dozen things in five basic categories that you might want to work on before next season opener. Some will tax your patience, cost a few bucks, or require changing a decades-old routine. You might buck a tradition, feel a twinge in your bad knee, maybe lose a few pounds. Any sacrifices will pay off on opening day. Your dog could have more finds and handle birds better than either of you deserve. You could have made a new friend, earned your dog’s complete adulation, and put a few more birds in the freezer.

1. Assessing Post-Season Steadiness

“I don’t care about steadiness,” said absolutely nobody. “Whoa,” “hup,” whatever your word or dog breed, shooting is better when your dog holds still when he sniffs a bird. He sees shot birds fall, won’t chase missed birds, doesn’t push the rest of the covey into the air, and won’t be in the path of a low shot by your brother-in-law. Define “steady” any way you like: to wing, shot, or fall, as long as you devote time and energy to re-training it during the off-season. Put your dog on live birds in controlled situations where he can’t catch them. Reinforce the whoa or hup command on live birds. Flush live birds and don’t shoot them all. Pick up some shot ones yourself. Harken back to your first go-round at training the pointing process, and do it again (if it worked) or search out more advice and start at square one if it didn’t work.

Besides the satisfaction of a job done well, the joy, beauty, and grace of a dog artfully handling birds is as close as most of us will get to a dinner date with Taylor Swift. Every bird find is an at-bat in the World Series, and a wobbly dog gets us benched. If we get on base, we’ll stay in the lineup next inning when we can do it again. But it’s almost a law of physics: days afield/number of birds = degree of degradation in steadiness. So, we’ve got to stem the bleeding by periodic re-training during the season, as we march (uphill, always uphill) from opening day to closing day.

2. Cleaning Up the Retrieve Post-Season

The corollary to my new law of physics is only a problem if you actually hit some of the birds you shoot at. That equation is: number of shots/hit birds = speed of backsliding on retrieves. But there’s also an “X” factor: Your willingness to enforce the rules in the heat of the hunt, when high-fiving and photo-taking outranks a disciplined retrieve-to-hand.

I’ve seen this law in action, often at my own expense. A covey rise leads to multiple birds on the ground, and a dog buzzing around randomly until he trips on a bird. He might pick it up, or search for another, or start hunting again. If he brings it back, the other two scenarios are in the back of his mind, so a quick drop-off in your vicinity might be as good as it gets unless you’ve trained him—and yourself—well.

“Conserve game, hunt with a trained dog” has never been a more apt bumper-sticker philosophy. If that’s not incentive enough to insist on a complete retrieve, consider that it’s the punctuation mark—the final act—in a pas-de-trois among dog, bird, and human. An artful consummation of the transaction is satisfying for two of the three parties.

Not to say you should “force break” your dog, but a focused, intensive training regimen focused on your post-season retrieve will ready you for the opener. Find a teaching style you and your dog are comfortable with, and drill, drill, drill. Throw bumpers and dead birds, run full-blown point-shot-retrieve scenarios in small doses so he doesn’t phone it in or push back. Talk to your retriever-owning friends for advice, if needed, because there is nothing more rewarding than a day like this:

We sweated our way up a high desert canyon enroute to a ridgeline we hoped held chukar. Coming down the same draw was a mope-of-a-hunter, looking downtrodden and shuffling without an ounce of energy left. He confessed to wing-clipping a bird up higher, that he thought had dropped in the general vicinity of our meeting. His Lab had searched, fruitlessly, until he’d given up and walked at heel, all-in.

I asked to send my wirehair, still getting warmed up and fresh off a mid-season hunt test. “Dead bird!” and he dropped nose to the ground and swept through the sagebrush, circling here and zig-zagging there. We lost sight of him in the cover, hearing the occasional snuffling and footfalls. Until—shh!—silence but for the gentle breeze. A brief scuffle and dust cloud, and he trotted back with the bird in his mouth. I was never more grateful for an inconvenient hunt test date—even now, I know better than to show off my dog’s retrieving skills after Thanksgiving.

3. Proofing and Reinforcing Your Dog’s Recall

“Elementary, dear Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes. Clearly, the master detective never owned a bird dog, where nothing is simple. Getting your dog back from across the room while watching football is one thing. While your dog has a bird in his mouth, maybe not so simple. And what about when the delectable scent of running whitetail crosses his nostrils? Non-compliance is the default setting.

Unless you’ve drilled it. Some trainers use the term “proof,” where you test your dog in various scenarios with increasingly attractive distractions. Off season is when you have the time and creativity to do just that. It’s the perfect opportunity to put your dog among birds, other dogs, and humans, while shots are taken and things go haywire, and ask him to come directly to you. It’s the single-most important time when the “proof” makes the pudding.

Recall is the first step in retrieving, too. Any self-respecting bird dog will race to a downed bird. It’s the coming back that’s problematic. Nail recall and your retrieving training is half done. How’s that for motivation?

It’s likely other obedience skills also slid a bit during the season. If needed, work on heel, stay, or down, and any hand and whistle signals you two have worked out. Proof them as you did recall, so you start this season on the right paw. Then, do a refresher once in a while on each hunt.

4. Practice Shooting in the Off-Season

I was lucky on one chukar hunt last season. I had plenty of time as the bird arced overhead from a ridgeline, setting my feet right, slowly mounting the shotgun, just in time for both rocks to roll out from underfoot, where my knees met them. It was a long, painful hike back to the truck, only slightly alleviated by the heft of another bird in my vest.

If I’d missed, I’d have had a good excuse. Unfortunately, not practicing your shooting isn’t a good excuse, as your dog probably reminds you periodically. So, say it with me: range time is good. Unloaded mounts and dry firing at home are even better. Master’s champ Scottie Scheffler spends more time at the driving range than he ever does on the course, for good reason. Like golf, shooting is a complex series of hands-eyes-feet-brain transactions requiring hundreds of high-quality repetitions to become ingrained in your entire body. It’s absolutely true: practice makes perfect.

A lesson or two from an instructor who hunts is a worthwhile investment. A careful look at gun fit wouldn’t hurt. I’ve had more than one friend say his shooting was best when he joined a league and was forced to deliver in front of friends and opposing team members. I’d echo that.

Between hunting seasons, there’s no pressure and a lot of time. Deconstruct your gun mount, swing, and follow-through. Generally speaking, the slower and more deliberate your gun mount, the more likely your body will do the right things naturally: eyes follow target, gun comes up to cheek, muzzle moves just enough to track and shoot the bird. Buy some snap caps so you can go all the way—you’d be surprised how many foul-ups are in the safety-off-trigger-pull portion of the shot.

5. Use Off-Season Downtime Effectively

The luxury of enough time is a precious commodity. Don’t squander it. Off-season is when you can browse, peruse, meander through data, and even daydream. It’s when you have the energy to change your mindset and develop new habits. And the rewards are infinite.

Replace unproductive “honey holes” with new coverts. E-scout them, maybe ground-truth with a visit/hike/dog training session. Resolve to go the extra mile, literally, in promising locations rather than follow the herd of other hunters creating well-worn paths. Find a dog-training partner to keep both of you on-task and meeting regularly. Shop for a new hunting partner who carries his share of the load and is pleasant to hang with.

Devote time to your friend the stair machine (don’t neglect your core!). Make plans to trade trips with distant friends. Join a dog training and testing organization and participate. Learn something new about dogs, birds, habitats, or shotguns. Read a classic book about bird hunting, create a post-hunt ritual to cement memories, and acknowledge the hard work of your dog and fellowship of a friend in the field.

Applying New Habits in the Field

Once you’ve instilled your new habits and your dog has too, you’re halfway there. But mid-season is when things go off the rails. Maintain a regimen of refresher moments for you and the dog, from a few warm-up gun mounts to a pre-hunt obedience drill for your dog. Let someone else shoot while you handle the dog, and insist on compliance in hectic hunting situations—for your dog and yourself—because if you two are diligent, there will be plenty more finds and shots.

In large part, we go hunting to enjoy our dog’s passion, intensity, and joy. Off-season work ensures an Opening Day of hopes and good memories. Enough of that work extends the elation all the way through the closer.