Big Swing at 'Er

[DGFavor]

Not sure what forum this belongs in or if it belongs but 3500 miles, a handful of states, a few trials, a bunch of training, a little hunting, a few beers mixed with a bunch of bar food, and 71 total hours behind the wheel of the 'ol Dodge. Started with the Region 14 ASD Ch. near Circle, MT then dashed to the US Chicken Ch. near Kennebec, SD, back to hang out and train with my Montana pals and hunt for a few days while the boys ran the NGSPA Sharptail trial, then home to work!! Nice swing at 'er to get the season started!

Unfortunately I can't embed videos on this forum but give this link a try - hit the full screen arrow dealy bob in right lower corner - http://www.vimeo.com/6474000

[Sharon]

That was a beautiful slide show. Thanks.

[bobman]

it sure was, lord do I have the "fever" bad

[cgbirddogs]

Doug did you take those with your point-n-shoot or SLR? All RAW format? The black and white shots are stunning! Especially the crop row shot.

[Hotpepper]

That is not possoble that a man could do and go to those places and then go back to work.

That is stunning for a lack of a better way of saying it. Super/duper.

Thanks for making that and sharing that.

Jerry

[snips]

Beautiful pictures. Quite a trip. We canceled our ND trip due to "just too busy". So those were nice to see.

[DGFavor]

Thanks everyone! It was a tough "assignment" but I suffered thru it!!

Too bad Brenda, I heard some decent reports from some of the trainers in No. Dakota - some other not so good reports.

Clarence - all were shot in RAW format then processed with Adobe RAW Converter. All the hunting shots were with my little Lumix LX3 - I'm struggling a bit with the Panasonic RAW RW2 format processing them in color but I am really liking processing them for black & whites - hence more B&W's from the hunting shots!! Some of the field trial pics were also with the Lumix - I was shooting my A700 with my 70-300mm lens in the morning braces when the sun was good then carrying the little LX3 for the afternoon braces when the light was not very good for pics. In retrospect, kicking myself that I didn't suck it up and carry the big gun SLR the whole time - not sure when I'll be in the presence of handlers like Billy Wayne Morton, Tommy Davis, Sean Derrig, Richie Robertson as well as some nice young handlers that may well be the next BW Morton someday. Coulda had some cool shots of Strut who ended up winning the thing - I've got some of him that I took with the LX3 but they're not very good. Oh, and the famous handler Rich Heaton was there running Ben...maybe he'll chime in about his experience playing with the big boys!! Anyway, in retrospect, wishing I'd have man'd up and carried the big camera with the big lenses throughout the So. Dakota trials. I was very impressed watching those guys handle/scout and learned a ton watching them...not to mention they are just some real nice folks, very friendly and went out of their way to introduce themselves - I was trying to lay low, stay out of the way, not do anything stupid figuring that if I made it out of there and nobody knew my name I'd have succeeded in not doing anything so stupid as to attract attention to myself!!

[Ken Lynch]

Not sure my PM ever got out of the blocks so I go this rout. The slide show is great. My question was what program did you use to generate it? Also in your opinion would it ever be possible for a person who does not ride a horse to ever be able to partake in such hunting. I think I have a few dogs that would be able to do an OK job. However, I do not ride horses.

[DGFavor]

Yes Ken, absolutely, and the majority of successful hunters do just that. Prairie birds have an awful lot of country to lounge around in making them tough to find so it can be a bit daunting to just start wandering around looking for 'em. Fortunately they are still largely creatures of habit and have somewhat of a home range or preferred terrain - once found or their habits understood, one can eliminate quite a bit of country....or so I'm told - until I figure all that out or someone lets me in on the secrets, I'll have to stick with a rangy dog and a big stridin' horse!! (truth be told I hunt quite a bit on foot here at home - but I've found most of the bird haunts on horseback eliminating a lot of wandering around when I do strap on the walking boots)

As far as the slideshow, I use my Adobe Element Organizer program to generate the slideshow, then save it as a .wmv video file that I can upload to a video hosting site. I take an awful lot of pictures and like to share 'em. A slideshow makes it easy to share 'em vs. uploading 85 pictures to my Photobucket album!!

[twofeathers]

Some folks are just blessed. Congrats, those are some great memories.

[Maverick]

Awesome pictures! Enjoyed that slide show very much!

Mav...

[Pineywoods]

I want to be just like D.G. when I grow up except for that Shorthaired thing.

[DGFavor]

Plenty of Florida dog folk roaming around the prairies - real envious of the Florida dog wagon they drove halfway across the US to bounce around the Madsen Ranch. That was a bad (meaning good) machine!!

except for that Shorthaired thing.

Bout to grow out of 'em myself from what I've seen lately!!

[Ayres]

Hey Doug, if you promise to take me with you next time I'm available for adoption.

Fantastic show!