The Central Prairie Field Trial Club will be holding its fall trial here in the Sandy Run Hunt Co. fields on October, 29 2017.  Sunday will have the Amateur Shooting Dog, Amateur Derby, Amateur Gun Dog, and Amateur Puppy Trials.  

If you have a good hunting dog, you should consider entering in the Amateur Gun Dog Trial.  The dogs in this trial run the course with another dog, need to be able to find birds, back dogs on point and hold their point until the bird flushes.  Sounds like your dog can do that easy enough, bring him out, maybe you will get one of mine in a brace.

If you are looking for hunting dogs and puppies, you can make some contacts with some folks who know where there are some of the nicest hunting dogs for sale or on the way.  Plus the trials give anyone a chance to see some classy looking dogs in action.  Bring your horse, ATV or walking shoes to be part of the gallery.  

Check out some video from the club’s last fall trial at Sandy Run.

The Cumberland Chapter of the Quail and Upland Game Alliance will be holding its annual banquet on Saturday, September 23, 2017 at the Vandalia Moose Lodge.  The doors open at 5pm and dinner is served at 6pm.  Tickets are $15/each at the door.  We have a ton of stuff we will be auctioning off, live and silent as well as bucket raffles.  I think we have at least a dozen firearms that can be won at the banquet, including some really nice shotguns.  The chapter puts on the youth pheasant hunt out here at Sandy Run and does a lot of habitat around Fayette County.  Lots of fun and great chance to get some nice prizes.

Every year when I mow paths in the Clubhouse Field I set the tractor bucket to catch seeds, leaves and critters.  This video clip and picture doesn’t come close to showing the diversity of insects, larvae, spiders, worms and ticks that get collected.  The bucket is just a moving mass of insects like the massive praying mantis to spiders so small you can barely identify them without magnification.  Lots of bird feed crawling around out there.