Hurricane Lake HRC Test

[Marty N.]

Had another great weekend at a HRC test, dogs were having the time of thier life. Plenty of wind and great tests wish some of you guys would have been there. Titled three dogs in Seasoned and the rest of the of the crew did a great job as well. We brought home 10 out of 14 ribbons all in Seasoned or Finished. Now I just have to figure out where I will take this crew for our next HRC test. I have three more Seasoned dogs to title all of them needing one or two passes and a couple of Finished dogs that need a couple more for thier Title. Any of you guys have any suggestions let me know, I know about the test in Mason but I do not run back to back weekends so that one is out.
Hope everyone's enjoying this weather.
Marty

[dinaw]

Hi Marty,
Thanks for coming to our hunt and glad you and your dogs had a good time.....how about that timber hunt

Thanks to all the judges that gave up a weekend to watch dogs instead of running and also a big thanks to all the club members that worked hard to keep things running along smoothly.

Looing forward to seeing everyone down the road.

Here's a link to the upcoming hunts:
http://www.huntingretrieverclub.org/PRE ... 0Index.htm

Dina

[dinaw]

Hi Marty,
Thanks for coming to our hunt and glad you and your dogs had a good time.....how about that timber hunt

Thanks to all the judges that gave up a weekend to watch dogs instead of running and also a big thanks to all the club members that worked hard to keep things running along smoothly.

Looking forward to seeing everyone down the road.

Here's a link to the upcoming hunts:
http://www.huntingretrieverclub.org/PRE ... 0Index.htm

Dina

[cdwyer]

Great grounds, great judges, well thought out tests!

Finished tests were awsome..

The timber hunt was extremely unique, about as realistic a hunt test scenario as I have ever seen! I passed by the skin of my teeth and am proud to have passed under Travis & Larry. Larry had me hook, line, & sinker on the last bird back on water! I gotta get him back...

Great job, looking forward to their Fall test!

[Marty N.]

Gotta say that timber hunt was the highlight of the weekend for me, my Chessie Cuda thought he was in 7th heaven. It was a blast watching him have so much fun and just picking up the birds like it was duck hunting. That feeling is missing so many times at hunt test that it is really special when you get it. Great Job to all the judges and especially Larry and Travis.
Marty

[goosebruce]

I had as much fun judging as I ever have in my life. Judging with people you like and respect as much as the crew I was with, can't help but be ok. We all talked about every series, and every bird did exactly what we wanted it to do.. that always means little judging has to be done, cause the test did all the work. You could make a video about test set up from the friday afternoon discussions we had, and sell it to every hunt test particpant in the country. I promise you that. Dogs did it, or didn't, and it was about 50% pass ratio... but I never heard the first gripe, cause everyone had fun on the set ups.

I never lifted a finger the entire weekend. There was a club member (or 3) there to do everything. In fact, I left the house without a cooler, bought one on the way there and tore it up within 90 seconds of my arrival. Kevin not only got me a cooler, he got the rest of my beer out of the truck and iced it down for me! Thats taking care of a judge. Thats the reason hurricane is one of the few places i will go and judge.

Tim Gipson (author of judges cornor in the hrc magazine) made the statement to stan it was the first hunt test he had ever been too he couldn't find anything that could be improved. Thats a man thats put a lot of miles on going to a lot of hunt tests, thats a big statement. I asked him if he wanted to write about any of our tests, and he said naw he pretty much stuck to the bad stuff. hehe. travis

[goosebruce]

Lookie like we where typing at the same time...

You know, I thought Id catch a lot of flack over that timber test. If there where unhappy people, I didnt hear about it. Seemed everyone thought it fun and challenging. The ideal of landing a single and calling the rest in wasn't orignally mine, I'll give that credit to jeff brewer hes the one that set it up several years ago at hatchie. Souned stupid when I heard it, but was cool when I ran it, so I decided it fit perfect for the hole we where in.

We had to wait for marty to come from seasoned sunday. No big deal, but i didnt want to wait that afternoon. So i told him to stay there and we'd run him up front on land when we flipped. We flipped, and ran all the guys that had to go back to season, or had long drives, before we ate lunch. Blew marty away to walk up and the marshall already had him on the list as part of the get gone bunch. To say he wasnt used to that is probably an understatement. Every person there sunday understood what we where doing by doing that, and they had no problem with it. Thats cool. travis

[Marty N.]

I would be remiss if I did not let everyone know how much I enjoyed the Seasoned set ups that Josh and his co-judge set up. For two days I ran under them and there was not one mark or blind that I did not enjoy. Even when the wheels came off of my personal dog, they were very challanging and well thought out and had great bird placement. It looks to me that a Seasoned test has got to be harder to set up than a Finished. You have distance restrictions both on the marks and the blinds that can be limiting to say the least. But my hat goes of to them they really did an outstanding job. I look forward to running under you guys again and hope to in the near future.
Marty

[Meeka]

splain what you mean by sitting a single down and calling in the rest. Did you actually have alive bird or throw out a dead one without a shot, or what?

[goosebruce]

Ya know how ya have an exciting situation for a dog, how people get quiet with their duck calling, and shoot late on the birds? And ya know how in a timber test, its hard to have a real set of marks. I figgered if you gonna throw a short bird right in front of the dog, it ought to be fun. The club brought a camo'd pontoon duck boat out into the woods for us to judge out of. A treestand in front of the boat got the dog out of the water. The scenario was you bragged on your dog so much, your wife made you bring your peice of crap bro-in-law, who doesnt call or even have boots (me), and your neighbor who thinks he is a world duck calling champion (larry). So I was shooting with you, and larry was calling with you. You had to get DOWN and call to get the birds to come in. First bird cut off the flock, came down straight over top of the blind and landed in deeks out front... let it land, so you could get the rest in (no shots). Once you called enough, I stood up and waved for the left mark, you shot, I shot, and then we swung to middle and killed the duck that got up off the water (the bird you let land), and then a right mark was thrown. 2 calls, 6 shots, long bird was maybe 35 yards. The right mark was very challenging even with the limits of distance from the trees, and many dogs went left of the bird & thrower. Walked to end of pontoon boat and ran blind (from still in the water of course) down a little slot maybe 55 yards to a big tree on the bank. It was one of the few blinds I could see control on, and still leave recovery a possiblity, and it provided plenty of answers without killing the dog (or handler) that made one misteak. Of the dogs that broke, they woulda broke in a real situation and/or if it'd been just a simple dump bird that close. Of the dogs that didn't, making it fit a real hunting scenario added some fun. It was paired with a big wide open marking test on land, with a cold blind... so it fit together real well i thought.

Oh and marty is right. Josh is one of the best in the business setting up a seasoned test. Seasoned is SO much harder to judge, cause there is a lot more judgement to be made. and its harder to set up, because if your wrong about a bird, you sure can kill a bunch of seasoned dogs, or not have the challenge you thought you had. Hats off to folks like josh that constantly put together a good seasoned set up. travis

[Duck Chaser]

SWEET!!!

[chance]

Calling, a single flops down in decoys. No shots. Calling, the rest come in and you commence to shooting. Kill single on second shot. Go bird on third shot.
Can your dog sit with a bird on water while you call in his buddies? Shoot em and your dog is not locked up on bird on water. Kinda neat test.

[B3]

I like it. Did you lose any dogs after the first bird was on the water and all the calling started? I've got a black beast who'd have gone ahead and jumped that live one in the decoys

Bill

[goosebruce]

Sure we did bill. But we had as many dogs break on the other water test where a big swing for the 120 yard go bird got them moving, and they just kept right on trucking. And as many of them broke on the 2nd bird on that test that was thrown close (maybe 25 yards). Heck I saw dogs break on the big land test. Dogs break. Many on them are right on the edge of it every series of marks... really is that a dog you want to hunt with? Not hardly. travis

[Marty N.]

B3
If that question was for me, I am proud to say my two guys sat for the whole test and boy o boy did they love it. If one big fat yellow dog would have given me an over or two instead of rolling it he would have been alot happier today and so would I. My Chessie did a great job on that test, he thought he was really hunting, he bounced around in that timber like he was in heaven.
Marty