First Week of October

Ahh, favorite time of year. So far has been cool and rainy. We have been doing a lot of hunting with pretty good bird numbers, hanging some bow stands, and enjoying the fall field trials. It has been good so far, mainly just trialing our derby Coco this fall. She has placed in three trials in a row so far, getting 1st at Allegan at the SWMFT open derby, 3rd in the Michigan Amateur trial with a very nice woodcock find, and 2nd at the National Brittany Grouse Championship open derby with a beautiful grouse find. This week kicks off the Woodcock Championship so we hope to do a lot more hunting and be up in the Gladwin area at the trial. Hope everyone is having a great fall!

Hunting Trip 2009

If some of the pics were cut off in the slideshow click http://s230.photobucket.com/albums/ee240/jgf_gratiot/?action=view&current=49b4c8fd.pbw to see in a little larger format. Another EARLY morning departure for North Dakota turned out to be another great trip. Despite the harsh winter, we still found good numbers of birds. There was a LOT of wheat still standing which made the hun hunting pretty much non-existant, but sharptails were in good numbers, although some coveys seemed a little smaller than last year. Scott Borgeson, Dave Terhaar, and I met up with Scott Berg and his friend Joe for a good week of hunting. We had dogs on the ground from sun up to sun down everyday, made a trip over to Columbus to watch some of the All-Age qualifier, and managed to get all the dogs plenty of birdwork. We also met some locals who were extremely friendly and went way out of their way to go hunting with us for a day and call a few people to get us on some more land. They were fun to talk to, as the lifestyle out there is much more laid back, and they just enjoy talking to people. One gentleman said he got snowed in last winter, had 12 phone calls all winter, half were of telemarketers, and he would keep them on the phone as long as he could just for someone to talk to. One of the better memories out there came a few days in the trip when Dave had his pup Rogue down, and I had my pup Diesel down, and we split apart a little bit to try and get some birds worked, and about 10 seconds from one another, they both went on point, we both flushed, being a couple hundred yards apart, and both dumped birds for the pups in sort of a hilly area, where the birds went down about a hundred yards away, and both went and retreived to hand. There were plenty of other memories, but when pups do that it always leaves a smile on your face. We had a wide range of dogs from 6 month old pups to derbies, young shooting dogs, prime shooting dogs, and retired shooting dogs. The forecast was supposed to be somewhat cool all week, but later changed, predicted to be in the 90's the later part of the week, so we packed up and headed back to the motherland; upper Michigan. We found some new covers, hunted familiar ones, and averaged really good flush counts. All in all it was fun to kick off the season, get the dogs dialed in for the fall, and realize how bad my shooting can get at times!

Labor Day Weekend Trial, a kickoff to the fall!

Labor Day weekend marked the first trial of the season for us as I have just been training and working. Erin, the dogs, and I went to Allegan to the Southwest Mich. Field Trial, and had a good time even though it was hot, around 83 when we left. Up next, North Dakota bound or bust come next Friday early morning. I will post a slideshow of the trip when we get back and I have time to sort through everything.

Fricke N Freddy posed with me got 1st in the Open Walking Shooting Dog, coming in 2nd was Kara (Pippilongstockings) with Scott Borgeson, and 3rd was Terhaar's Elvis with Dave Terhaar.

In the Open Walking Derby, Fricke N Coco, posed with me was 1st, followed in 2nd by Terhaar's Ivy with Dave Terhaar, and 3rd by Dolly with Bob Kluger, not pictured, who headed out early thanks to a five hour drive.

New York Trip - Empire CH/Lost Pond Field Trial

Last week I had the oppurtunity to go to New York to go to the Lost Pond Field Trial as well as the Empire Championship at Grouse Ridge Kennels. It was a very fun trip with lots of great scenery and dogs. My friend Dave was judging the Championship so I tagged along. We loaded up the horses and the dogs and were able to ride all week. I also added an older slideshow from last fall as a new feature came up to post on here.

Spring hasn't really sprung as the weather has stayed pretty cool, cloudy, and rainy. The quiet season starts up again this week, and we made the most of the wild birds this spring. For a puppy, Coco had really good month and a half or so. I tried to run her in the woods 3-4 days a week since the snow has been gone and she has pointed birds I think every time but once. I was hoping to do a little more trialing this spring, but about the first week of March, Freddy, my derby, had a tail injury and has basically sat in the kennel for a month and a half, but it looks to be pretty much heeled this week so we will hopefully catch some of the later spring trials. I have only went to the Michigan Amateur Club's trial, where I only ran Coco; she got 2nd in a field of 16 pups. I am hoping to ride some of the Michigan Shooting Dog Championship this week at Ionia, and am also hoping to go to the Empire Championship in New York in May. Other than that, we might catch a few other weekend trials, and just keep working the pups. Below is a picture of Coco on point at 13 months old.

Spring 2009

Finally, bare ground! After an extreme winter, spring looks like it's finally here. We have been finding woodcock as of about two weeks ago, with a decent amount of birds found last weekend. All of the dogs have been getting plenty of work, along with Slic, the tennessee walking horse which was added to the group in the fall. We also have a few puppies we are starting this spring which I am excited about. In the coming weeks we are just trying to get the dogs on as many birds as we can before the quiet season starts, and shuffle back and fourth between some of the trials at Gladwin along with some of the US Complete and Horseback trials.

Slic and I

Daisey, one year old female getting steady on birds

Puppies, what a bunch of work! Pictured above is Bruno and Diesel with Erin, and below is Finley and the Diesel. In case you can't tell these two are half brother and sister, both sired by Rocko. Finley is out of RU CH Magic Climb's Kaytoo, and the Diesel is out of a nice female named Grace, who is out of Long Gone Agnes and Long Gone George. Bruno is by The Insider and Grouse Ridge Paris (Grid Iron x Grouse Ridge Maxima) So far they all seem to be good at eating, peeing, and poopin.





Video
The Baby D as my wife calls him aka The Diesel scent pointing a pigeon (I threw a tethered bird in this clump after he already went through the area and ran out in the field) So what if it's only a pigeon, not to bad for the third bird he has ever encountered; gotta start somewhere with the babies!

Daisy workout video, a 1 year old female for sale