SNEWC DAY TWO

Grousehill Buck P/U on a bird

Elhew Wildfire Handler elected to P/U

Brace 8

Wild Apple Jack had two woodcock and a pair of Quail

Filed Stone Farm Clyde woodcock

Brace 9

Magic Mist Charlie failed to back

Windstar 3 ups

Brace 10

Elhew Alexandra no bird

Richfield Stella impressive race P/U on bird near end of hour

Brace 11

Bear River Shea no birds

Sweet Pea no birds

Brace 12

American Honey No birds

Chasehill Little Bud no birds

3 braces plus the bye tomorrow.

At 8 years old Jack showed that he can still run with the younger dogs and dig out birds.

SNEWC DAY ONE

Hot and Dry today.

Both dogs in the first brace had a bird.

courses 2-4 had no dogs finish with bird work. In the fourth Brace Franklin had a stand near the end of the hour neither the judge nor the handler saw a bird leave. The scout saw the bird and tried to point it out to no avail.

Back on Pine Top for bracce five and Al Robbins dog Brady had a miscue on its second woodcock find to end his bid.

In the last brace of the day neither dog had bird contact but robert Ecker walked up a woodcock just before we reached the road.

Southern New England Woodcock Championshrip

I'm going to be at the SNEWC which will run for the next three days. They got a nice entry of 32 dogs. I'll try to post an update each evening. Jack runs in the 8th brace which should be the second brace on Saturday. He drew the Barber Farm course which has usually had birds in the past.

Song of Spring

One of the great pleasures of spring is listening to the woodcock sing. Last night I drove up to one of our training covers and waited for it to get dark. At 7:34 I heard the first woodcock fly and then begin his mating song. over the next 20 minutes I identified at least four different males around this large field. Tonight we stood outside the house at about the same time and eventually we could hear at least three different male woodcock. We have two more really hot days in the forecast and then we should return to more seasonable temperatures both here and in Rhode Island for the championship this weekend.

During the day today we worked dogs. Our first brace was Jack and Frankie in one of our regular covers and we moved five woodcock on three finds.

On the first one Jack was close to 500 yards away when the Garmin buzzed and Frankie found him and backed before I got to them. I waited a minute or two for Tony to catch and neither Jack who is 8 and Frankie who is still a puppy moved. You'd expect nothing less from Jack but to see a puppy Frankie's age do it and stay broke for the flush and shot is pretty impressive. And to prove it wasn't a fluke he back Jack on his two subsequent finds including one where the bird acted like a liberated quail on a rainy it day. It walked a

little then flew about five feet before bury itself in the grass on the edge of the field. Both dogs saw all this and never moved. Here's a picture of Frankie on his first back today.

The second brace of the day was Tony's other puppy, Trash, and my puppy LJ. They both ran well with no bird work until after I picked up LJ when we got back to the truck. Tony took Trash a little further on and was rewarded when she had two grouse finds in quick succession.

Tom Parker joined us for the final brace and we ran Trip and his dog Veronica. By that time it was getting hot and both dogs held up well with Veronica digging out a woodcock out on the limb late in their brace. The bird had apparently walked off as Trip almost ran over it before she knew it or Veronica were there.

Deuce

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have long practices pickinig out who was dog of the day. I think it started for me in Texas with Bob Stewart and Bill McFadden. Bill always wanted his dog to be "dog of the day" while in reality it was often one of Bob's dogs that got the nod. I can still remember Bill yelling in what was (I hope) mock anger that he hated Elhew Flicker as she once again won the day.

So, today's dog of the day was Wild Apple Deuce as he put down a hard run race that involved a couple of dips in ice water that didn't even slow him down. He also nailed a couple of woodcock. You can always tell if its a woodcock or a grouse by his tail, it's at 1 or 2 o'clock on a woodcock while on a grouse it's straight up at twelve. His head is often higher on grouse as well.

I ran LJ with his mother today and they failed to produce a bird, at least that I saw, however they did get a good airing out as they raced about 800 yards down a gravel road at one point and were frequently out at the 200 yard range according to the GPS. It was also interesting to note that the spot they ran was only about 7 miles from where I ran Deuce and there was much more snow where they ran which may have been the reason they ended up racing down the road.

Summer?????

Got back from a week in Kentucky and was able to get the dogs out. There was still a little snow arond the house so we headed south about 30 minutes in hopes of running in to a bunch of flight birds. But it was not to be. Other than the unproductive where we found both Jack and Frankie standing, we had no bird work. I think that you can attribute that to two things, first the temperature this afternoon reached 74 degrees and the covers we ran in are already much drier than they are normally. We talked to the owner of one of the covers who stated that he only had his road plowed once this year. The older of his two boys was running around without out his shirt throwing snowballs from the one remaining snowbank at his younger brother who was wearing shorts. We did flush two grouse. When I got home I took LJ out around the lower fields at home and much of the snow that had been there this morning had already melted. We also flushed a grouse not far from the house. Tomorrow afternoon I'll run the whole loop at the house and see what's around. Tom reported that early this morning Veronica had a woodcock find and three grouse finds with a total of 15 grouse. By the end of the week, if the temperatures that are forecast materialize we should be just about snow free. Tomorrow should be in the high 60s and then three days in the 70s. The river and all the brooks have already started to rise.