What a year!

I hear rumors of some quail ranches already closing down hunting this year for various reasons, including lack of birds....but we are having a banner year! You just need a Sherman Tank to get to the birds because of the cover!

The week of January 10-13 was an opportunity to join with some special friends, Pro Trainer Bunny Brown of HighPoint Kennels in Grandbury, Tx http://www.highpointkennels.com/ and one of Bunny's clients Robert Barksdale of Dallas, plus friends Gareth Cook and Ed Small from Austin. All of these are outstanding wingshots and they brought along some class Brittanys, including the other two pups from our most recent breeding of Hello Dolly De Lamont x Natl Ch Bean's Blaze. Plus, Ed had his outstanding Black Lab that was an amazing joy to watch. The weather was in the 50s and the wind was a factor much of the time, but we found an ample number of birds in spite of the cover. Ed repeatedly commented on the size of the coveys. He swears that two of them were over 30 (!) birds!

The real fun came in watching the 3 month reunion of Dolly's pups.....we 'gang' ran them on Jackrabbit Flats and it was off to the races. I was very proud of our Daisy, but Bunny's male, "Blaze" had the fastest and most impressive ground speed and drive for a large pup I have ever seen. Robert's "Lady" had matured a great deal since we watched she and Robert drive away in September and she shows a lot of class and desire.

Update: I'm posting this on Jan 21, sitting in Sugar Land with a lingering cough as I had to cancel my trip down this week with Gareth and John Murchison but the report was 12 covies found yesterday afternoon and 18 (!) finds this morning. A call a few minutes ago said there were another 12 covies found this afternoon! WOW! Plus, the good news was about Daisy, our 5 months old pup that sleeps at the foot of our bed every night. She was really running wide and had knocked a few covies in previous trips but according to Gareth, she found 4 covies this afternoon, with two of the finds that she held long enough for John and Gareth to down birds in front of her, and her to retrieve! DOUBLE WOW! There is nothing like seeing a young dog "get it"! Thanks guys...I am glad you were there with her.