Thursday, May 22, 2008

Hunt Test Training, Marks and Blinds

Summary
  • Park Heights, training with one of Bob Hux's HT groups
    • Series A. Land series
    • Series B. Water series
  • Fair Hill, with Nate as thrower
    • Series C. Marks and blinds
Field Trial Line Mechanics. After correspondence with Alice, I decided to begin using Field Trial line mechanics with both dogs. As part of that, I asked all throwers to use no duck call, and to fire a gunshot before throwing rather than while retrieval article was in the air. I plan to make the same request with all throwers from now on for the foreseeable future.

Conditions. Series A and B were run at Park Heights, where the grass has not been mowed this season and the cover is now chest high. Series C was run at a new area of Fair Hill, which I'll call Area 4. We didn't use previous areas of Fair Hill because the grass in all those areas was too high. Temps throughout the day were in the 60s but felt colder because of a 30 MPH northwest wind.

Series A. Bob's land series, left to right within a 90° angle:
  • #1: 70-yard mark, pheasant thrown by winger left to right
  • #2: 50-yard mark, pheasant thrown by hand right to left
  • #3: 110-yard blind, orange dummy at lining pole, line to the blind tight to #2 on the left, with a large tree to the right
Laddie ran Series A as singles, in the order #2-1, then ran the blind. He had no trouble with any of the retrieves, and lined the blind.

Lumi ran Series A as a double, thrown #1-2 and picked up #2-1, then ran the blind. She had no problem on #2. She needed to hunt on #1 but did not need help from the thrower. On the blind, she headed toward the tree, became out of sight in the high cover, and when visible began slipping whistles and refusing casts. Eventually, she did take handling to the blind.

Series B. This was Bob's water series, left to right within a 90° angle:
  • #3: 30-yard land-water mark, white dummy thrown into open water
  • #2: 60-yard land-water mark, white dummy thrown against shoreline of a point, with two closer points on shoreline along the left
  • #1: 110-yard land-water-land blind, orange dummy and lining pole, past three points on the left
To enable Lumi to make the long swim while she was fresh, I decided to run her on the blind first. She repeatedly veered to left or right shore, taking casts been then digging back. I finally decided the blind was too hard for her and called her back.

I then asked that the marks be thrown as a double #1-2, to be picked up #2-1. But the thrower for #2 accidentally threw her dummy into the tall grass behind her holding blind. At Bob's suggestion, she then threw a second dummy into the water.

Lumi retrieved the dummy in the water, but when I sent her to #1, she veered left and tried to find the dummy that had been thrown into the grass. I called her back, walked her to the shoreline, and sent her again. She required handling to keep her off the points on the left, but retrieved the mark.

I saw no training benefit to running Laddie on this series, so I didn't run him.

Series C. After an email discussion with Alice in which she mentioned that Lumi's and Laddie's excellent marking skills have probably been enhanced by running long marks, and that they may degrade if don't continue doing so periodically, I decided today to set up a series with longer marks than we've been practicing lately.

Left to right within a 60° angle:
  • #3: 180-yard mark, white dummy
  • #2: 120-yard mark, white dummy
  • #1: 140-yard blind, orange dummy marked by surveyors flag
The terrain was low rises and dips, with irregular footing in knee-high grass.

I ran Laddie first, then Lumi.

LADDIE

On the blind, Laddie was responsive to all WSs, but he interpreted the first several angle-back casts as angle-ins, which I would assume is because we've been practicing angle-ins without mixing them with other casts. I hadn't noticed the problem before because Laddie has been lining so many of the blinds he's run. Finally, Laddie took a couple of angle-backs correctly, and got out a little past the blind. Then I got to use a legitimate angle-in to bring him in.

Laddie did a great job on the marks, which were longer than any he has run in some time.

LUMI

On the blind, Lumi was responsive on both WSs and both angle-backs, one to the right, one to the left.

Lumi also did a great job on the marks.

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