Hunting grouse is a spiritual thing
As every grouse hunter knows
And when you loose your dog
And strike out on foot behind it
The third with you is always God Read more
Hunting Grouse
Blog
My Prayer for Field Trials
I love field trials
As all who know me know
And I worry for them now
As entries slow Read more
A Prairie Plot
Willie Green and Alvin Roop had been rivals throughout their careers. Home based a hundred miles apart east and west of the Chattahoochee opposite Columbus, less than that in Manitoba in summer, they competed as handlers on the all-age pointing dog circuit. The year was 1963, and Willie and Alvin were forty years old.
Willie’s scout was Booty Blevins, Alvin’s was Sam Williams. Both were black men, ages about the same. They loved their jobs and were good at them. Read more
Scout
They rumbled into the trial grounds in the familiar old red Dodge two-ton, found a depression to back into. The scout, a black man, eased out the driver-side door and let the tall tailgate down, allowing the four dog horses to walk down it and off the wood-floored bed onto welcome grassy turf. They had driven through the night from the last trial where they’d handled a dog in the final brace, leaving with no share of the purse. They needed a share of this one or they’d be looking for a loan to cover gas (and motor oil) money to get home to south Alabama. Read more
Four Men Two Dogs One Spare Tire
They were two-man teams of rivals. Some thought enemies, but they were not. They were famous, in a very small, obscure world. Each was a trainer-handler or a scout of all-age pointing dogs.
Each handler worked with a scout, usually a black man, who traveled with him in a two-ton stock-bed truck they drove from trial to trial hauling the horses they rode to handle and scout off of and the dogs in the string of pointers (and occasionally a setter) they entered in the trials.
Read more
A Funeral
The day dawned cool and clear, to the relief of Ben and Sam, who would serve today as honorary pall bearers, as they had so many times before. The funereal and burial was that of Alvin Blevins, lifelong employee of Mossy Swamp Plantation, a legend to all who knew him and his long history on the storied estate. Read more
Chinquapin Second Week January
Oh, Chinquapin
I miss you so
This first January
Without your trial Read more
The Florida Championship
The Florida Championship is no more
A glorious trial is over forever
Like all things conceived by mortal man
It had a beginning and has come to an end
It was unique in many ways
Embodied the best of the field trial game
Wild quail on sloping prairie-like land
Wire grass cover over sand Read more
Field Trials — Gentleman’s Sport?
Pointing dog birthdays always occur in the first week of January. True or False? Read more
Sallie
“Where there is wealth there is envy.”
That was a favorite saying of both Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD, the curmudgeons. In their long years practicing law and medicine in Albany, Georgia, northern anchor of the quail belt that stretched south to Tallahassee, they had seen many examples. Read more