Perry Stanfa brought out his three young pointers for a warm up before his trip out west. I set out some quail singles in the South Tinkerfarm Field for the dogs to find and point the birds in the prairie strips. He picked a nice cloudy morning and the dogs had some good finds, working towards mid-season form.
Randy and Jesse Tapp drove up from Kentucky for their first pheasant hunt. They picked the best day of the early season, damp, cloudy and cool, nice break from the hot and dry fall. Sol came out for the first batch of birds, doing a good job of finding the pheasant in the thick cover. After a change of guns, chokes and dogs and we headed back out with Mac and Curly to finish the hunt. The old pair found the remaining birds and a downed one from the first pass. Great early season and first pheasant hunt for Randy and Jesse.
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.
Sandy Run will have it’s next Continental Pheasant Shoot on Saturday October, 21st. Get signed up soon to make sure you get your spot reserved.
Not sure what a Continental Pheasant Shoot consist of, check out videos and all the information here.
Greg Ireland brought out his dog, Daisy and friend, Mike Yociss to kick off Sandy Run’s season with a pheasant hunt. Conditions were not ideal, hot and humid, but Daisy still found the pheasant in the prairie strips in the South Tinkerfarm Field. She got a little heated so I brought over, Jake, a Boykin Spaniel, I am training to help with the hunt. Jake did a great job covering the strips, flushing and retrieving a pheasant. Great start to the season.
This off-season at Sandy Run saw the loss of my English Setter Doo and Hannah’s yellow kitty, Tigger. Check out some pics and videos in tribute.
Hard to beat a nice quail covey rise for excitement in the field. Everybody gets to shoot at a bird or three and then you get the fun of hunting up the singles. It’s as close to the quail hunting I used to enjoy in these same fields growing up. Fun shooting and lots of dog work.
There will be a couple of English Setter pups for auction at the QUGA Annual Banquet on September 23rd. Last year 2 really nice pointer pups were almost given away. One of the pups from last year has done some guided hunts at Sandy Run and the other is doing awesome in the field. These 2 look like they are going to be some nice dogs. Come make your bid.
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.