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marks were nearly 180 degrees across . The first bird
down was the right middle mark. It was a dead
cock pheasant thrown back to the right about 300
yards away. The left middle guns then threw a dead hen
pheasant back to the right. It was about 275 yards deep
and converged with the previous mark. Next, on
the left, a set of guns threw a dead duck to the left,
across a road where it landed in pasture grass
225 yards away. The last bird, a shot flying rooster
was a good distance to the right. It was angled sharply
back to the right approx. 150 yards from line. As the
dog was sent for it, the right middle gunners retired
to a blind which completely enclosed them. The wind
was strong, and came crosswind or downwind throughout
the day.
It took a bit of time to set up so the first
running dog, #38 appeared on line about 8 a.m.
To see all the birds go down, most handlers had to
move their dogs, especially for the right flyer. The
two middle marks converged and were relatively close
- especially since the right one retired. The far left
on was thrown across a road, at times into the wind,
and there were a number of no-birds when they blew back
toward the guns. Throughout the day dogs had trouble
on all of the birds. Early dogs had difficulty with
the retired mark (left middle), but by afternoon the
wind had switched and work became better on it. Instead,
the right middle, nearly a "gimme" in the a.m., became
the problem due to the wind a low light. There were
hard hunts and a few handles on each.
The left bird was across the dirt road and dogs would
square it, throwing their mark off and hunt behind them
To be successful, dogs would have to run right down
the road, and traditional training discouraged
that. By day's end, approx. 11 dogs had handled on a
bird in two tests. The 31 "clean" ( no handles) dogs
on Tuesday had also dwindled.
Because of no birds and long hunts, the series could
not be completed by dark. At times only 5 dogs were
run in an hour. After #30 ran, the test was suspended
for the day. It would begin at 7 a.m. on Thursday. There
were 5 dogs left to run and no partial call backs were
given.
It was rumored that the sixth series would be a land
blind in the same area.
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