It’s Thursday morning and day five of this year’s National. We are in the 5th series. The test is a land quad with two long retired guns. The retired guns are converging and pretty much equal distance. The right hand retired gun is about 275 yards and the left hand retired gun is closer to 300 yards. If you refer to the diagram, this will make more sense.
There are a number of factors that make this test very challenging. First of which is the close proximity of the two retired guns. Mostly downwind with a occasional right to left bias, both are hen pheasants. The right hand retired gun is thrown right up against an island of trees. That island protects the downwind side of the bird. The left hand retired bird is thrown angle back. There is a lot of room to run around deep and behind both retired guns. Another huge factor is the hen pheasant flyer that is shot third. If you expend a lot of energy hunting the flyer, there isn’t much gas left in the tank for the two retired guns. The morning temps were in the low forties. The afternoon temps are expected to rise into the seventies. Conditioning is likely to play a big roll later on this afternoon.
A couple of the handlers that just completed the test have told me, that they sent for one of the retired guns and ended up picking up the other. In both cases they were able to make sense out of what they did and get the other retired gun without having to handle. I have always thought that it is almost more important for the dogs to know where they have been, than to know exactly where the other birds are. If they are able to make sense of what they have done, you have a fighting chance on a very difficult test like this one.
We have only done one blind retrieve so far. It is likely that three of the next five series will be blinds. It will be interesting to see if these great marking dogs can switch gears and exhibit control necessary to run the upcoming blinds.
Stay tuned …
Pat Burns, Elite Retrievers
