Last Updated Saturday, July 13, 2019
Saturday, July 6, 2019 No promises, but I will do my best to let you folks at home know what's going on in beautiful downtown Palmer, which as I write this is luxuriating in 90 degree weather. Not thrilled about that, but it's supposed to cool down to the 70's for the event, although that will probably be accompanied by rain just to even things up a bit.
Vik and I and the boys fly out tomorrow early evening and get to ANC around 3 AM - not the best arrival time, but our landlord has assured us we can get into our accommodation whenever we make it there so we'll work it out. I believe most of the judges are up already, and the Ofstedals are in place and have already found some new training grounds so that's good news. I'll post again once we are on site and starting to train.
Thursday, July 11, 2019 Day one is over and most survived.
The land test was a very straight-forward affair with the first bird a flyer from the left side thrown right to left at about 71 yards, a middle bird at 64 yards thrown right to left and the go bird on the right thrown left to right at about 45 yards with the gun station just in front to the middle bird station. All three birds required some degree of pushing through a depressed bowl to get to the fall. The blind was backside to the flyer station up the far wall of the bowl at just under 70 yards.
I apologize for the shoddy photo work, but I have neither the software not the internet connection to do any better at this point.
Most of the dogs did well on the marks although the flyer naturally got harder as the number of dogs who had run it increased. The gunners were first rate, with nary a "no bird" to be seen. All the winger throws were very high and the visibility of the marks was excellent. The blind was a little harder than I expected, and while a couple of dogs lined it, a fair number of dogs sucked to the flyer station, including my little felon.
I have neither the time nor inclination to duplicate the Invitational site running order so I will just say that we lost dogs 3 and 13 today and you can see the official results here.
Friday, July 12, 2019 Day two is also over and all survived and will run the water series tomorrow.
We ran the trail first, and I was lucky to go first and it was a nice break, although most of the dogs did very well on it. It started at the edge of some trees along the pond we used in 2014. It made the standard "U" and came out across a road where the dog picked up the bird and came back down the hill to the handler. Before we finished the wind shifted to blow straight from the birds to the starting point and a couple dogs had pretty short trails to the pick up but the judges lived with it and didn't set up a new trail. All the dogs were passed on to the upland so no harm, no foul.
The upland was an interesting exercise, unlike what we usually see and the variety was a nice touch. It was a grouse hunt, and after quartering about 70 yards up a hill to warm up, you went down a hill, accompanied by your two gunners and worked between some open wooded areas and a clear area adjacent to the woods. You then turned left and went through more open woods where you emerged into a small open field where you got your flush, a hen pheasant. Dogs and handlers seemed to like it and do well, as evidenced by the fact that we were all called back.
Tomorrow we finish with the water series, in a different, larger pond than we used in 2014. It doesn't have as much pond structure as that one, but is much bigger with more shoreline, a pretty big island and much more room around the banks to place some birds outside the pond. I can see a reentry mark using the island, and they have the room to do a long flyer so we might see that as well. We're due for an honor, too. The judges have set up eminently fair tests so far and I'm looking forward to tomorrow, as they have more to work with in this pond than they did on land and I expect something interesting to say the least.
Saturday, July 13, 2019 More details and pictures the next couple of days, but here is the final list of qualifiers.
And a priceless view of the qualifying handlers with Judge Val clearly losing a bet with her harem.
