The Central Prairie Field Trial Club held it’s fall field amateur field trial at Sandy Run Hunt Co. They picked a beautiful day, bit of frost in the morning, cool and sunny all day. The shooting dog and derby trials were held in the east and west Bottom Fields. The club ran the Gun Dog and Puppy Trials at the Cabin Field. Gary Matevy won the shooting dog trial with Butch along with top place honors in the gun dog trail with Sammy. Dan Crunk’s Betty got second in the shooting dog with Jeff Hainline’s Star getting the last placement. Don Heisner got first in the Derby with his setter, Buck with Brad Hire and Burr getting second and Brad Hargis third with Red as well as third in the Gun Dog Trial with Jack. Charlie Brolin got second in the Gun dog with Cooper. In the puppy trial, Jeff Marshall’s Joker got first with Eryn Pearson’s setter, Kilo getting second and Rosy with Jeff Hainline getting third place. Lots of good dog work and one of the first fall weather days made for a great trial.

Travis Devall came out with his two setter, Patches and Zip and pointer Sadie. Dean and Sandy Devall came along with Sadie’s brother, Cy for an upland bird hunt. I set some pheasant, chukar and quail in the south end of the Tinkerfarm Field. With some good dog work and shooting they came back the all their birds plus an extra quail.

Randy Rehkop and Brad Shoults brought out their pointers Bud and Elsie to get some early season bird work in on some quail. I set out some mini-coveys around the south end of the Tinkerfarm Field. They had a rough start with the first couple of coveys being a little runny and flighty. Eventually the dogs and birds cooperated and they came back with almost all.

Brett Schwalb brought out his young lab, Abby for one more warm up hunt before heading west for a pheasant hunt. Gary Marco came along with his setter, Max and buddy Tom Hillmer to help with the hunt. I set some chukar down in the prairie strips in the East Bottom Field, and on the way we got into a covey of leftover quail. Abby and Max found all the chukar, and the hunters dropped them all. Heading back through the Clubhouse Field they were able to pick up a couple of leftover pheasant. Great warm up for their big hunt out west.

Dan Crunk and Butch Spelbring brought out some of their field trial dogs to get them used to some pheasant rises. Doc and Betty both held, didn’t move a toe, when the big birds got flushed.

Bob Buck brought up his Munsterlander, Cooper to hunt some pheasant before heading south for the winter. The first morning Bob picked was wet and rainy. They hunted pheasant in the prairie strips in the east and west Bottom Fields, before heading up through the Clubhouse Field after some leftover birds. For their second trip the weather improved, low temps and no rain. More pheasants in the bottom fields and chasing extras in the Clubhouse Field. Bob came back with a story of a triple rooster rise near the bottom pond. Gonna be a long winter for Cooper with nothing to hunt but seashells.

Jeremy and Jairen Stroud came out with their best buds, Tristan and Gavin Zimmermann for a pheasant and chukar hunt. They picked a warm morning, but also the morning after the Continental Shoot, so there were plenty of birds running around the Clubhouse Field. Kailen and Gavin got a lot of action, both knocking down pheasant and chukar.

Sandy Run held it’s first continental pheasant shoot of the new season. Great weather for the event and the shooters had a good time knocking the high flying pheasant from the sky. They enjoyed the pulled pork BBQ and fixin’s before most of us headed back out to try to hunt up the “ones that got away”. The warm, dry weather was not to our benefit in the clean up hunt, but we still managed to get a bunch of rises out of the leftovers.

Jerry Fortuna brought out his son, Tripp for his first upland bird hunt. Tripp’s grandfather, Scott Sandstrom came along with Jerry’s vizsla, Cooper and German Shorthair, Jackson to find the pheasant, chukar and quail I set out in the prairie strips in the South Tinkerfarm Field. The pair of dogs found and pointed the birds and Tripp finally got a good chance at his first bird on a chukar double and nailed one while his grandfather got the second. Nice start to the upland season for Jerry and his pups.

Toby Hoekstra set up a pheasant hunt for his family, Ryan, Mike, Jason, Roy and Terry. Travis Devall came out with his setters and pointer to chase pheasant around the Clubhouse Field on a warm dry October morning. Patches, Zip and Sadie did a nice job finding and pointing the pheasants. The whole group had a great hunt despite the heat.