Day 2 – Flight D – Test 1 – Goose Pond-Land – Sunday, October 18

Flight D: Martin Bell and Bruce Bachert

Goose Pond-Land – Land Triple, Blind, Honor

This was a Land Triple with a blind and honor, using all rooster pheasants. The handler comes to the line on the crest of a hill. A well-brushed blind sits in front of the line at the base of a hill. This station blows a call, shoots, then throws to the right with the bird landing 103 yards from the line. Next, to the handler's right is a walk-out flyer. The gunners are in a blind, deep right of bird one. They walk out, blow a call and shoot to the left with the bird landing 139 yards from the line. Next, there is a pheasant call from a brushed-up station on the handler's far left.  This bird is thrown to the right, landing 75 yards from the line. The dogs picked-up the go-bird, next they picked up the flyer and finished off the test with the middle bird. After completing the marks, the dogs were asked to run a blind off the left hand side of the middle bird, located 127 yards from the line.

We arrived in time to hear the Judge's instructions and watch the first two test dogs. Test dog #1 had hunts on all three birds with a nice blind. Test dog #2 had a nice job on the go-bird and the middle bird, but had to be handled on a very long flyer. Quite a few problems arose while running the blind, showing the handlers the pitfalls of this bird. The Judge's initial estimate was that this would be a seven minute test.

This was the last test that we visited on Sunday at the end of a long day. The temperature had warmed to 63 degrees and it was sunny, but the wind kept the temperatures cool. As the handler stood on the line, the wind would be hitting them in their back left shoulder. The rumors going through the gallery said that they had had about a 50 percent attrition rate so far. Most of the problems were on the flyer. Once the dogs got deep of the bird, it was difficult to cast back into the wind. We watched seven dogs run and saw four good jobs, two handles and one pick-up.

Judges Bruce Bachert and Martin Bell

Derek Randle describes Goose Pond - Land