NGSPA Nationals

Hotpepper · Post by **Hotpepper** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:46 am

This will be starting on the 28th in Arkansas. Who has sent entries and will be going or there dog will be there.

I know that John and Spot will be going and Spot is as hot as my dog is.

Hope all that go have a good time and "make some money"

Pepper

Jager · Post by **Jager** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:42 am

I have a dog that will be in the Futurity (Jager) a male GSP sire is GK's Nuke It. Will be handled by Chris Goegan from Hi-Point Kennels in Ohio. This is the first hope all goes well.

Hotpepper wrote:This will be starting on the 28th in Arkansas. Who has sent entries and will be going or there dog will be there.

I know that John and Spot will be going and Spot is as hot as my dog is.

Hope all that go have a good time and "make some money"

Pepper

Wagonmaster · Post by **Wagonmaster** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:18 am

I have a secret source that advises me that Flash (Strike's Flash of Gold) will be in the AA again.

Size wise, it will be rougly the same as the past couple of years. 22 in the NC (All-Age), 49 Futurities, 30 ASD's and 50 OSD's . last year was 28/44/30/53 . Gulledges are not going. Otherwise, the usual cast of characters - and I do mean characters self included - will be there.

Jerr I am screwed on the ASD though. Have an imutable schedule conflict and will be there only for the AA for two days.

Hotpepper · Post by **Hotpepper** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 2:33 pm

John

I will get to see Spot go in Kansas this year for sure. Have never been to Boonville and Just have Bud entered in the open shooting dog. Hope he does well and certainly want to wish you well.

Bud digs so hard, hope they do not loose him on point as hs been done before.

Pepper

Wagonmaster · Post by **Wagonmaster** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 2:36 pm

They lose everybody on point on those grounds. Last year we lost Spot on point a quarter mile off the course. Other scout found him. Long ride, lots of fun to find him standing over there, big covey. Hope we find that covey again. I just read a report on the Southland, the pointer trial that runs on those grounds, and they had many finds. Unfortunately, there have been many trials before us. We will see.....

original mngsp · Post by **original mngsp** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 3:17 pm

Hope Spot and Bud both put on a good show down there.

I'm sure it has been brought up before, but if these grounds are so tough or bad, why don't they find a different site. This is a National Event, good grounds are part of it.

Wagonmaster · Post by **Wagonmaster** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 7:05 pm

There is always some grousing, but the Southland Championship is there, which is a pointer all age major championship, the Britt Nationals and the Irish Setter Nationals. The facilities are really nice.

Some very very nice dogs have won there.

A dog has to handle to get around. And that course three is kind of a bugger.

DGFavor · Post by **DGFavor** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 7:34 pm

I'm sure it has been brought up before, but if these grounds are so tough or bad, why don't they find a different site. This is a National Event, good grounds are part of it.

Are you trying to suggest something that makes perfect sense?? We won't hold it against you but next time try not to think so much.

Wagonmaster · Post by **Wagonmaster** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 10:15 pm

Go the the Feb. 17 Field, read the 2 page account at page 12. Won by Bocefus, National Champion Cypress Gunpowder was in it, but moved on his birds.

If they can get around, we can get around.

Except that course three is a bugger. Did I say that before?

Wagonmaster · Post by **Wagonmaster** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 10:00 am

Course three starts out nice and ends nice, but right in the middle there is a nightmare of a dog leg. It turns left and all there is, is a road with heavy mature woods on both sides, often flooded. This patch is 200-300 yards long. The only way through to the second half of the course is that road.

You have turned the dog loose at the start, he has worked his way through some tight country, then it opens up into a big field and the dog goes to work the field. But right at that point you have to call the dog in, gather him up, maybe put him on heel, and heel him down the road to the second half of the course.

If the dog is far to the front in that field where the course turns, which is where it should be if it is anything of a dog, you are not going to be able to bring it in and work through that pinch point. And there is no good way for the dog to find its way through those woods if you make the turn by yourself and hope he will find his way to the front. Scout is not going to get him there either. If you do not have the dog with you at the turn, you have lost him for the rest of the brace.

The problem is compounded of course, if you have any kind of wind so the dog cannot hear you at normal running range.

We ran in two braces last year. Drew course three twice. Lost the dog twice.

DGFavor · Post by **DGFavor** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 1:24 pm

If they can get around, we can get around.

They aren't declaring a Nat'l Ch. there!!

I've never been to the grounds and probably shouldn't comment but the overwhelming sentiment seems to be the place stinks. That includes the opinions of some that have won. Nice accomodations and hospitality can certainly fluff up a trial but in the end it needs to be about the dogs and fairly evaluating them...especially if it is our biggest show.

Who wants to go compete somewhere that has a built in 33% chance of failure just by virtue of the draw itself?? Courses and conditions should never be allowed to eliminate dogs especially at a Nat'l Championship. Geez, why not just run two courses?

Montana in Sept.!! Montana in Sept.!! Montana in Sept.!! Montana in Sept.!! Montana in Sept.!! Montana in Sept.!! Montana in Sept.!! Montana in Sept.!! Montana in Sept.!!

Hotpepper · Post by **Hotpepper** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 3:21 pm

Doug

The people that run the trial have a hard time seeing thing from a different perspective. All of the problems is why I have never been there and will probably never go. Even all the handlers that took them there now complain.

The biggest problem is that the planted quail get pushed off and "way off" into the woods and finds or points are hard to come up with.

Pepper

The fella that is handlin LB there this year has had a lot of success there and was winner last year and runnerup the year before. Hope he and Bud stay on the same page.

wannabe · Post by **wannabe** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 3:41 pm

Hotpepper wrote: The fella that is handlin LB there this year has had a lot of success there and was winner last year and runnerup the year before. Hope he and Bud stay on the same page.

Jerry,
Who is handling your dog?

Wagonmaster · Post by **Wagonmaster** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 5:28 pm

They aren't declaring a Nat'l Ch. there!!

The Red Setters and the Britts declare National Championships there, but you are right, our dogs can't handle as well as theirs.

I like the open country just as much as the next trialer, in fact I like it better. but we can't make a dog for the whole country, based on the terrain you will only find in half of it.

And the Southland is an Ames qualifier.

Spot had a hellacious beautiful limb find on a big covey, way off the course last year, on course three. I just wish we could have kept him after that.

Rematch, I want a rematch.

PS Doug, where do you think they were running last year, that gave rise to JR's "subspecie" comment about so many dogs being lost? Maybe this discussion sheds a little perspective on that??

Hotpepper · Post by **Hotpepper** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 8:19 pm

I gave him to Rich Barber and they are getting along very well. There is no mistake that I really love to handle this dog, he is a real fun critter and I have never seen one that wants to please me and wants to find birds as bad as he does.

He just wants to point em and stand there. He is really good. Now I realize that I am very one sided here. A good one.

Rich is a true cowbot and would love to have him as my scout all the time. Him and Rob Creaney are the best 2 scouts that I know of outside of Robbi Gulledge.

Pepper

original mngsp · Post by **original mngsp** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 5:46 am

From what many say Richard Walters is one very fine scout to have too.

pttrrff · Post by **pttrrff** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 11:49 am

Booneville is definately a tough place to run a dog. I think if the bottoms were mowed it would make the most improvement. What I like about Booneville is a dog isn't going to find birds unless it's hunting. As much as I also don't want to draw course 3 I'd rather run on course 3 than run the course that they used this year in the second series at the amateur in Eureka.

pttrrff · Post by **pttrrff** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 11:52 am

Has anyone who the replacement judges are for the all age?

DGFavor · Post by **DGFavor** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 12:31 pm

What I like about Booneville is a dog isn't going to find birds unless it's hunting.

C'mon, it's a field trial - we can't have dogs out there hunting. Sheesh, what next.

John, I don't think field trials have to be conducted in open country by any means. I just think they should, especially Nat'l Ch. type events, be conducted in places that at least have birds or are a place you'd go to hunt birds. I've never heard anybody mention the Booneville grounds as the hotbed for quail hunting!!

I do think JR's comments/beliefs were the culmination of many trials, maybe over many years, and not necessarily based soley on his observations from one trial. It's unfortunate that those statements, which I agree with BTW, got tagged onto a field trial report and felt by some to be describing those particular dogs.

wannabe · Post by **wannabe** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 12:33 pm

Jerry,

Your dog is in good hands with Rich. Are you going to leave Bud with Rich through the Spring so we can see him run in the mid-west?

Wagonmaster · Post by **Wagonmaster** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 3:46 pm

Well, go look at the J. Perry Mikles website. The trial grounds were a hotbed of quail hunting when the grounds were first opened for use. In fact, all they did was set up feeders to keep the wild birds somewhere around the courses. Now that there is wall to wall trialing there, the birds get pushed off. Important for the clubs to make an investment in stocking birds long before the trial, so the grounds bear some semblance to what they would be if they were wild.

The alternative really is to get people to invest in opening up grounds, as the state of Ark. did with Boonesville, and then once the put the investment in, leave because the place is too popular so the birds don't stick around like they use to.

Wagonmaster · Post by **Wagonmaster** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:09 pm

Six braces today in the All Age. Two dogs around clean. Uodibar's Shoot the Moon, handled by John Rabidou, had a nice race. Did not see the race, but he had birds, don't know how many. Don Fidler also got his dog around in the last brace, but on the dog wagon, we did not hear any shots, so I think no birds. Baron von Greiwe II.

Had a nice conversation with field trial icon John Rabidou, sitting on the dog wagon. He said he has run or judged on this course for 21 years, and it is a very tough course.

Six braces tomorrow, the last two are bye's, so a total of 10 more dogs to run.

Yawallac · Post by **Yawallac** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:00 am

John,

Good luck!!

Go Spot Go!!!

Hotpepper · Post by **Hotpepper** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:26 am

Doug your comment about them seen hunting is my point for a year. They just do not want to see them hunting or taking a line. Not what I want to see.

I did not know there was a judge change in Boonville? Who has the information if anyone?

My plans are for Rich to have him through the end of Great Plains, he does want to go to the AKC Championship in Nebraska as he has some dogs that need to be run in AKC for some other folks and he is heading back to Iowa I think. Where would you get a chance to see him? Which grounds? I want to go to the Can-Am and the Region 4 all this spring. I am about busted him from sending in entries.

The immediate weekend after Great Plains there will be a trial at Middlefork at Danville Illinois and am very happy to see that club did not belly up after all.

Pepper

DGFavor · Post by **DGFavor** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 1:04 pm

Doug your comment about them seen hunting is my point for a year. They just do not want to see them hunting or taking a line. Not what I want to see.

I'm not quite sure I understand what you're saying Jer. They don't want to see them hunting or working an edge? That's the kind of stuff I like to see bird dogs doing...other than standing birds, what else are they supposed to be doing out there?

Can I venture to guess you just want to find them standing on point?? That's OK with me as long as it's reasonably on course and in a place that would have been realistically useful to a hunter. In all honesty, that's pretty much how my hunting goes...cut 'em loose, keep 'em to the front and find 'em with the Tracker standing birds. Works good when I can use the Tracker, not so good in a field trial. I have to rein the dogs in a bit after hunting season and get 'em handling a little more kindly to get 'em around field trial courses...alot of times in the spring trials I don't. Lost Stitch 3 times in row last spring and figured out that doesn't work very well if we wanted to win anything. I think a handler is better off to consistently get to the end with bird work, give the judges something to think about, than to make their decision easy and just cut loose a popped balloon that you hope you find somewhere.

I just like to watch bird dogs. IMO, a fast, snappy bird dog hunting likely cover at a 100yds. is doing the same thing as a fast snappy bird dog hunting likely cover at a mile...we're just more likely to find and finish the one at a hundred yards!!

lvrgsp · Post by **lvrgsp** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:46 pm

Please keep the updates to the national coming our way, thanks for the updates John. It is greatly appreciated.

Chip

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