Gene Perkins set up a quail hunt for his friend Jim McCasland and Jim’s English Pointer, Spec.  They picked a wet morning, after an all day rain, but the mini-coveys of quail I stocked in the Clubhouse Field still flew well.  We chased quail around the field, across the bottoms, through the pasture and back to the clubhouse and came back with almost all.

Butch Spelbring brought out his pointer, Bree, and good friend, Wayne McMorris for a quail and chukar hunt.  I set out some mini-coveys of quail and chukars in the Clubhouse Field and the three set out to find them.  Bree did the job, found the birds and Butch and Wayne knocked them down. 

Phil Hocher set up an upland bird hunt for his friends.  He brought along his Springer, Mike and Clinten Rybak brought his lab, Jax to handle the birds at the Tinkerfarm Field.  Greg Ireland and Daisy helped clean up all the birds plus some at the Cabin Field.  Travis Devall brought out Sally and Patches to guide the hunt on the Clubhouse Field.  Phil put on a nice hunt and showed all the guys a great time out in the field.

John Cavaletto brought out his pointer, Burl for a quail hunt.  I placed some mini-coveys of quail around the Cabin Field and John and Burl hunted them up.  Burl shined with many stylish points and John made some nice shots, even knocking down a few quail that snuck into the timber.

Max Oertwig brought out his new German Wirehaired Pointer, Ava, for some training on quail.   Autumn, Max’s older German Wirehair, came along to show the pup the ropes.  Ava found some birds and had some nice points and even got to carry around a few birds.

Charlie Diecker reserved the Clubhouse Field for his brother and nephew the morning after the Continental Pheasant Shoot.  Unfortunately, his Brittany was sidelined after a heart attack, so his pointer Lincoln got some help from Mac and Doo, two of my English Setters.  I set out some pheasants and chukar, but we didn’t get too far before running into some of the leftovers from the day before.  Great morning to be in the field and plenty of action for the dogs and hunters.

The inaugural Continental Pheasant Shoot was held on Saturday.  I set up a tower at the peak of the Clubhouse Field and set a dozen stands in a circle around the tower.  The pheasants were released from the tower and flew out over the shooters.  After each round of shooting retrieving dogs were sent to pick up the downed birds and then back to more pheasant shooting.  Awesome weather with temps near 50, cloudy and just a slight breeze made for a fun, pleasant day in the field.  Check out the video, you get a peak of how it looks from the stands and inside the tower.

Chris Cox and Eric Pinkie drove down from Valparaiso to do some duck hunting at the Carlyle walk-in area and get some upland hunting at Sandy Run in the afternoon.  Eric brought his German Shorthaired Pointer, Dixie, to do the retrieving and upland pointing.  I stocked the Clubhouse Field with pheasant and chukar and Dixie hunted them up.  For spending the majority of her hunting time stuck in a duck blind, Dixie did well covering the big field and finding the birds.  The ducks didn’t cooperate in the mornings but the pheasants gave the trio some nice action.

Dan Crunk came out with his pointer Millie for some quail work.  Dan is fresh off the disabled list after some knee surgery and it was Millie’s first venture into the field after having a litter of pups.   Hard to tell from the dog work and shooting that these two have missed many days in the field this year.  Also, there will be pups available from Millie in January.  The pups are sired by Sir Eaton and range from all-white to mostly white with liver.  These will be some nice pups, the parents can really hunt.  Call Dan at 618 910-1099 for more information.

Chuck Gurkin and Gene Hodge made their inaugural hunt to Sandy Run on a perfect day for upland bird hunting, near freezing, slight wind and overcast. I filled the Clubhouse Field with chukar singles and doubles and got Curly, my German Wirehaired Pointer, to do the guiding. Curly found the birds, plus some quail scraps, and Chuck and Gene knocked them down. For round two, Mac and Doo, two English Setters, got the chance to work some more chukar sets. After some enjoyable time in the field we headed back to the clubhouse with more birds than I released.