Grand National Invitational Trip

Last weekend we made the trip out to Rhode Island to the Arcadia Game area for the Grand National Invitational. I went mainly to watch the trial, but hauled a pup along for the puppy classic. All in all it was a good time with quite a bit of nice dog work seen. The trial is a 3 day format in which 14 of last years top coverdogs nationally compete for the honor of being named Champion. All dogs run one hour braces the first two days, and the judges can call back however many dogs they want the third day to be named winners, in this trials case, four were callled back. It was about a 14 hour drive one way, which endured safe travels there and back. The trial was run mainly on woodcock, but one grouse was pointed one the first day. It was great to meet many new people, especially some of the people from out east who don't make it to Michigan very frequently. Dave TerHaar, whom I rode out there with had Elvis and Rocko in the trial, and both did a nice job, especially Elvis. He was superb on the ground and had a nice woodcock find on the first day, while pushing the course to the limits, yet showing up when called upon. Rocko also did a nice job, but was lost to judgement on the first day putting him out of contention to be called back. Rod Lein, a gentleman from Wisconsin also rode with us. He had a nice pointer female named Belle who was a great little bird finder. She made the callback on the third day but ran into a little bad luck. She did however find THE grouse in Rhode Island. Rod was a great guy to get to know, and we all had fun. He does a lot of hunting and only trials a few times a year, so it was quite a feat to get qualified for this event with the limited number of competitions he runs her in. The puppy classic was also a good time, even though we didn't end up placing, the dogs did a nice job against some very stiff competition. Dave ran Scott Borgeson's pup Jack, who is a littermate to my pup Woody. Both dogs were competitive, making nice forward casts with adequate races. We look forward to the rest of the spring with all of the dogs. Here is a link to the pictures I took while out there. http://s230.photobucket.com/albums/ee240/jgf_gratiot/?action=view&current=c4db72de.pbwaction=view&current=c4db72de.pbww&current=c4db72de.pbw The dog named Champion ended up being Sunkhaze Fast Break, a pointer owned and handled by Mike Flewelling from Maine. The runner up was named Quail Trap Tom, a english setter owned by Dave Hawk from Ohio and handled by Vance Butler from Michigan. The picture of my truck is how much snow we got the night we drove home, as I left it at Dave's house, and the ground was bare when we left. No fun.

The very top picture is of John Stolgitis with Bud and Dave TerHaar with Elvis. This was breaking away on day 1 after the rain had somewhat cleared. The next picture is of Dave TerHaar with Rocko on a nice woodcock find on day 2. Rocko put together a nice performance on day 2, showing the class he has always exhibited for a larger dog. The 3rd picture is Dave and Elvis getting ready to breakaway on day 2 with Ryan Frame, the videographer of the event. The next picture is Rod Lein with Electric Belle, whom I spoke of earlier, and John again with Bud. This brace was on the cemetary course, which produced quite a few birds early on. I beleive each dog had 2 clean finds and a back. The headstones shown in the picture below are of the cemetary, which had headstones dating back to the 1820's. This was quite a course to walk with this historical marker, as well as winding hills and a nice walk down along a winding creek. The next picture with the dogs running down the trail is Elvis and Bud at the breakaway. This was a fun place to watch them cut the dogs loose, as there was a grass field before the cut, so you could watch the dogs stretch out 300-400 yards in the open and dive straight into the cover. The next picture is on day three in the callback series with Mike Flewelling's female pointer Sunkhaze Maggie Mae and Rod's dog Belle. Belle is in the foreground while Maggie Mae is in the background. Judge Tom Fruchey is shown in the orange hat while Mike is off to the side. I am not sure if they considered this a divided find or not as both handlers appeared to be flushing. Both dogs eventually ran into some bad luck and were not able to finish their brace. Still an honor to have made it that far.

Up next is the Michigan trial season. I am hoping to go to Allegan this weekend for a US Complete Trial, and then the amateur classic at Gladwin. We are hoping for continued melting and for the woodcock to keep moving in. There is also still one puppy available from Scott Borgeson's litter from Kara (TerHaar's Rocko x Grouse Ridge Meg) who was bred to CH Berg Brother's Jack earlier this winter and whelped 10 pups. Kara is a very classy first year shooting dog who got 3rd in the Grand National Grouse Futurity as a derby, and also has shooting dog placements. They are now about 6 weeks old I beleive. She had 7 females and 3 males. Leave a comment or email me at frickensetters@gmail.com for contact info.

Thanks for reading, check back soon as I will post updates from all the trials attended throughout the spring.

Finally the weather has broke some, losing most of the snow around here. I have been running the dogs in the Lansing area, where the temps reached 50+ for a couple of days, and the ground is mostly bare now. When I was up home last week (Carson City area), there was still quite a bit of snow, mainly in the woods, but the fields were starting to get bare. Yesterday I found my first woodcock of the season with one of the pups, and today I found another one. Hopefully by next week we will start to see them in numbers. Thanks for checking in!

Early March training trip to Kentucky

Freddy retrieving a chukar after a nice workout and bird find. He was very happy to see bare ground, and boy does he love birds! (Pictured both above and below retreiving)
The picture below is Elvis, Freddy and Daisy's dad. Elvis is very exciting to watch. He is extremely strong and classy on the ground. Oh yeah, he looks great on birds too!

Below, Woody being worked on a bird. He is coming along quite nice. The hills gave him a good workout after watching it snow for the last couple of weeks.

Since the winter weather has continued to hold strong through the first of March, Dave TerHaar and I decided to pack up the dogs and head south. Last weekend (March 1st, 2nd, and 3rd) we headed down near Lexington, Kentucky. We were very grateful to be able to get the dogs on the ground, as they needed to get worked before our trip to Rhode Island towards the end of March for the Grand National Grouse Invitational. We left Friday during the middle of the night and were working dogs early Saturday morning. What a releif to get out of Michigan, as we saw bluebird skies the entire time, with temperatures in the 60's, reaching 73 when we left Monday afternoon. We took quail and chukar with us not expecting to find many wild birds, but to our surprise, we got into very workable numbers of grouse and woodcock. During the entire trip, I think we only went birdless on two braces, and one of them just had pups down. The terrain was very hilly with good grouse habitat throughout. This ended up working out quite well for conditioning the dogs burning up and down hills all weekend. I also felt the burn by the last day. The best part of the trip was sitting on the tailgate the last evening as it was still probably about 60 out, and watching the woodcock do their dance in the skylight, listening to them zip through the air. It almost seemed like spring, only to have reality hit the next night when we arrived home to 23 and snowbanks. We ended up using the liberated birds for the puppies. They did a nice job, and we shot them after the flush, as they looked proud as a peacock retreiving to hand. All in all it was a fun trip that was very productive for only being a long weekend. I also picked up my new pup. Her name is Daisy. She is a little tank with tons of energy. We are very excited about her.

Puppies are cute and have a mind of their own with an attention span of approximately 0.5 seconds. Daisy goes from a sock, to a backpack, to a rug, to a shoe in a matter of 30 seconds. She is just full of it, but is very loving so far. Thanks for reading!