Mike Shepherd
04-18-2011, 11:49 AM
The NSTRA West Texas Regional championship field trial was this last weekend.
My bird dog handling student Steve Morse and I had met at the trial grounds to practice the weekend before and noticed that thousands of pigeons were flying over.
We met again Friday morning at 6:30AM with plans to shoot pigeons for a little while and then work our dogs in preparation for the Regional championship trial Saturday and Sunday.
We killed about 60 pigeons in about 45 minutes. Steve ran out of shells and I had to sell him some. He was complaining about paying $5 per cartridge but I told him to just run to town if he didn't want to buy mine.
Then we planted quail and worked four dogs until about 3:00PM that afternoon. It was really miserable after about 9:00AM with the wind blowing 40 to 50 mph and the dust and sand driven into everything. It wasn't as bad for Morse as he had a lot better company than I did.
Ya'll know how I hate to brag on my dogs but I know many of you have a keen interest in them so I strive to keep you informed of their accomplishments. Molly won second in the Saturday quarter-finals and my Red won 3rd (2nd Runnerup) in the region overall on Sunday. There were a lot of very good dogs there and we had some luck but Red really exceeded my expecations and his training and handling. Three of my dogs qualified for the regional trial, Molly, Belle, and Red.
Proving that even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then my bird dog handling/training student Steve Morse's dog Duece won first in the quarter finals Saturday. Steven has really learned a lot about bird dogs under my tutelage.
The Parker is a VH 12 I bought in Tulsa 3 years ago. It had a cracked wrist, the toe of the stock had been chipped and then sanded off. It was loose, off face, has a repaired ring bulge in the left barrel, and the top rib bends slightly at the ring bulge (probably from the ring bulge repair), and the trigger pulls were 1-1/2 and 8 pounds. And I got it for only $250! And after I paid Keith Kearcher about $750 and David Yale another $300 and USPS another $50 it is in tip top mechanical condition and I could get $200 for it easy. I forgot to mention that you can tell that it had checkering at one time. Oh, and the automatic safety didn't work and that is mandatory for me for a field gun.
It has 30" barrels and I had the chokes opened up to cylinder and .015", weighs 8lbs even with the sling swivels and sling, has trigger pulls of 3-1/2 and 4 pounds, stock is 14-1/2 x 1-7/8 x 2-7/8, and it won't miss a pen raised quail during a field trial. For the field trials I shoot 1-1/8oz of #9s out of the right barrel and 1-1/8 oz of 7-1/2s out the left. I shot 1-1/8 ounce of 7-1/2s at the pigeons.
The pigeon shooting was a blast. That was my first first time ever to pass-shoot pigeons. The dogs had a great time rounding up the downed birds and the profit on my cartridge sales paid for my whole weekend!
Best,
Mike
My bird dog handling student Steve Morse and I had met at the trial grounds to practice the weekend before and noticed that thousands of pigeons were flying over.
We met again Friday morning at 6:30AM with plans to shoot pigeons for a little while and then work our dogs in preparation for the Regional championship trial Saturday and Sunday.
We killed about 60 pigeons in about 45 minutes. Steve ran out of shells and I had to sell him some. He was complaining about paying $5 per cartridge but I told him to just run to town if he didn't want to buy mine.
Then we planted quail and worked four dogs until about 3:00PM that afternoon. It was really miserable after about 9:00AM with the wind blowing 40 to 50 mph and the dust and sand driven into everything. It wasn't as bad for Morse as he had a lot better company than I did.
Ya'll know how I hate to brag on my dogs but I know many of you have a keen interest in them so I strive to keep you informed of their accomplishments. Molly won second in the Saturday quarter-finals and my Red won 3rd (2nd Runnerup) in the region overall on Sunday. There were a lot of very good dogs there and we had some luck but Red really exceeded my expecations and his training and handling. Three of my dogs qualified for the regional trial, Molly, Belle, and Red.
Proving that even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then my bird dog handling/training student Steve Morse's dog Duece won first in the quarter finals Saturday. Steven has really learned a lot about bird dogs under my tutelage.
The Parker is a VH 12 I bought in Tulsa 3 years ago. It had a cracked wrist, the toe of the stock had been chipped and then sanded off. It was loose, off face, has a repaired ring bulge in the left barrel, and the top rib bends slightly at the ring bulge (probably from the ring bulge repair), and the trigger pulls were 1-1/2 and 8 pounds. And I got it for only $250! And after I paid Keith Kearcher about $750 and David Yale another $300 and USPS another $50 it is in tip top mechanical condition and I could get $200 for it easy. I forgot to mention that you can tell that it had checkering at one time. Oh, and the automatic safety didn't work and that is mandatory for me for a field gun.
It has 30" barrels and I had the chokes opened up to cylinder and .015", weighs 8lbs even with the sling swivels and sling, has trigger pulls of 3-1/2 and 4 pounds, stock is 14-1/2 x 1-7/8 x 2-7/8, and it won't miss a pen raised quail during a field trial. For the field trials I shoot 1-1/8oz of #9s out of the right barrel and 1-1/8 oz of 7-1/2s out the left. I shot 1-1/8 ounce of 7-1/2s at the pigeons.
The pigeon shooting was a blast. That was my first first time ever to pass-shoot pigeons. The dogs had a great time rounding up the downed birds and the profit on my cartridge sales paid for my whole weekend!
Best,
Mike