Wednesday June 17--Brought To You By Avery

The Fifth Series Land Quad

The fifth series consists of a land quad. The right hand bird—306 yds, is a dead hen pheasant, thrown left to right onto a mound with an immediate retire. The direct line to the bird is down a slope , with a short swim, onto the bank, across a dirt road, in and out of another piece of water, and then back to the bird. The short left middle bird—106 yds, is a dead hen pheasant and the bird is a severe angle back with a right hand influence, landing below the base of a small pine tree. The long right middle bird—310 yds, a mallard flyer, has the dogs running across the field, and across a small channel to the bird. The left flyer station—155 yds, is a rooster and lands to the right of the guns.

The first Test Dog, Sunny, began at 7:43 and picked up the left flyer with ease. He had minimal hunts on the two middle birds, but the swim down the channel made him come out to the right of the last bird. He winded the bird and came back over the crest of the mound and picked up the bird. The Second Test Dog, Fannie, had a short hunt on the left hand flyer. The short middle presented more of a problem with a long, circling hunt to the bird. She split the middle of the two right hand marks and then winded it and went straight to the flyer. On the right hand bird, the dog went long and deep and then came from behind the mound to pick up the bird.

#57 was the first dog to run at 8:13 am. #37 scratched and so far we have had fairly good dog work with two pick ups by dog #63 & #67. The wind is light, variable and changing direction.

It’s 1:55 pm and we’re having a gun change. So far 32 dogs have run. The wind is blowing quite strongly from the southeast, coming from right to left. The dogs are having a tough time on the long flyer, even with the guns out, the dogs are going behind the bird and hunting short. The long retired bird is also giving some difficulty. Whether they cheat the water, it puts them behind the bird; if they take too much water, it puts them off the bird on the upwind side.

So far the handles have been: #63 (p/u), #67 (p/u), #81, #85, #92, #96, #108, #113 and #118. Many dogs have had quite a big hunt.

Happy Snaps




Latest update: There have been handles for dogs #118, #2, #5, #15, #20 and #29. Despite that, there have been several pretty jobs. There are four more dogs to run before we stop for the workers party tonight held at the Iron World Museum at 6 pm. We will be stopping at dog #34. The series will resume tomorrow with the test dog running at 6:30am and the running dog at 7:00 am.

Last Dog of the Evening...



The Famous 'Worker's Party'

At 6 pm, the crowd gathered at the Ironworld Complex. It was a very enjoyable and relaxing evening after several days of hard work out in the field. The food was very good with an Italian theme: tortelini, ravioli, sausage, meatballs and garlic bread as well as salad with all the fixings. It was a cool evening, many people meandered in and out of the building onto a deck overlooking a wrap-around pond with bridge--a beautiful setting. The evening was lots of fun with a duck throwing contest and the band played hits of the 60s and 70s.