The Central Prairie Field Trial Club held their fall amateur field trial at Sandy Run Hunt Co on October 29th.  The club used the East and West Bottom Fields for the trial.  Jeff Marshall and Ted Ellis judged the shooting dog and derby trials.  Conditions were far from ideal with warm weather, swirling winds, thick cover and a pile of pheasants running around.   Dan Crunk and Butch Spellbring judged the gun dog and puppy trials.  I entered my setter Ava in the gun dog trial again, but could not get her around the course.  She had one really nice point and didn’t really want to back her bracemate Bob.  The final straw was a quail at the end out in the open that just wanted to flutter and run around, too much for her to take.  Still a fun day in the field with a bunch of dogs having a blast.

Joe Lawson set up a hunt for his family Doug Forbes, along with Josh and Tim Lawson.  I set some pheasant and quail coveys around the Clubhouse Field and West Bottom Field and got out Doo and Curly to find them.  After finding all the pheasant and getting one covey rise, it was time to switch out dogs.  Sol and Ava got to find the other quail coveys and chase down the scattered pheasant.  Nice hunt especially for a day when the weather was a little too much like late summer.

Mark Lasher stopped by on his cross country trip to do some pheasant and quail hunting with his setter, Zip.  I set out some pheasant in the milo strips at the Tinkerfarm Field and then some quail doubles back in the prairie.  The weather was warm and the pheasants wanted to run through the thick milo, but Zip and Mark got all of them airbound.  The quail had nice rises and Mark knocked them all down.  Hope Mark finds cooler weather as his travels north.

Kevin Diekroeger got his hunting season started with a quail hunt at the Tinkerfarm Field.  Penny, his English Setter and young Ina, German Wirehaired pointer came out to find the birds for him.  Kevin also got a chance to shoot his new toy, a Browning Citori Featherlight 20 ga.  He should have had a couple of doubles on the four bird rises, but gave them a little more dog work.  Nice start to the season.

Bill Warix and Alan Feezel came out with their shorthairs, Whip and Harley for a pheasant hunt.  I stocked some pheasant in the milo strips in the east bottom and we led the dogs through the Clubhouse Field to pick up some extras. They found one rooster on the way to the bottoms and then found all the birds in milo.  They took a trip around the west bottom and kicked up several more birds.  Nice morning with a bunch of action.

Jerry Fortuna brought out his German Shorthair, Jackson and Visla, Cooper for a quail and chukar hunt.  Scott Sandstrom came along to do most of the shooting while Jerry worked the dogs.  I placed some quail coveys and chukar in the milo strips and prairie edges of the east and west bottom fields.  The weather was just too nice and the although the dogs had many points the birds were just not wanting to fly on a warm, bluebird day.  They did find a couple of leftover pheasant to chase around and got some good work out of the pups.

Trevor Hubbs came out with his year old, Red Setter, Jackson for a pheasant and chukar hunt.  Jackson found them all plus a pile of leftover pheasants from the Continental Shoot.   Some really nice early season work for the young setter.

The Central Prairie Field Trial Club will be holding its fall trial here in the Sandy Run Hunt Co. fields on October, 29 2016.  Saturday 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 Hunt Co.’s first Continental Pheasant Shoot of the season had some great hard and high flying birds.  The birds did a nice job avoiding a lot of the shooters attempt to bring them down.  Beautiful day to be in the field and we had a lot of fun shooting from the stands and then doing a some clean up hunting after the escapes after the pulled pork lunch.

If you haven’t got your own bird dog yet, we have you covered.   I usually run a German Wirehaired Pointer/English Setter pair when I guide a hunt, but if you just have to hunt behind a lab, I can do that to.  Our other guides have a variety of pointing and flushing dogs.  So, until you can get your own puppy, we would love to let our dogs find birds for you.