Blog

Escape

April 11, 2023 | Poetry | Comments

What is a perfect escape from our worries? I know but one To hunt grouse with a son And one or two bird dogs you share You do not have to bag birds You only need to go forth together Where grouse live and enjoy the prospect Watch your dogs search ahead Read more

My Good Luck

April 5, 2023 | Poetry | Comments

I look back Across decades Of a grand life With joy and gratitude And for no part more Than my bird dog field trial life Which began modest but became grand Read more

The Dog To Do It…continued

March 29, 2023 | Field Trials, Poetry | Comments

And you ride to his call And there stands your dog high and tight Will it stay when you flush After three usually no Your scout knows that well Was why he called point But nothing to do But flush Read more

The Dog To Do It

March 27, 2023 | Field Trials, Poetry | Comments

Where the dog goes Only where it should Deep forward and using the wind To find game at the end of a half-mile cast at the top of a hill Read more

Chain Saw Burglars

March 22, 2023 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Timber theft was not rare in the forest lands across the rural south. In fact, it was an art form, especially where absentee land ownership was common. It’s practitioners included, among others, unscrupulous timber cruisers, surveyors, loggers and log truckers, saw millers, land dealers and managers, and occasionally lawyers and county officials. Ben Reach had observed them in action, often in concert, over a long career. He had acted to thwart them when he came upon them in time. Read more

Memories

March 18, 2023 | Remembrances | Comments

With no Florida Championship to report this year, I have turned to re-reading memoirs of great field trial handlers, namely Jack Harper, Ed Mack Farrior and Leon Covington (via his biographer, John Chriswell). Their careers spanned 6 decades (1919 through 1960s). I knew only Mr. Ed Mack, and what a privilege! Read more

Andy

March 17, 2023 | Great All-Age Dogs, Joe Hicks, Joe Hicks | Comments

It is not hard to find joy and sorrow joined close together in our game. In fact, they are a recurring theme in the human-canine dramas that tie together men and women and great field trial bird dogs. As I reflect on the dramas surrounding the Florida Open All-Age Championship over the twenty-seven years I reported it, none is so poignant as that of Chinquapin Andy, Florida Champion in 2009 and 2010, his trainer-handler, Joe Hicks, and his owners, Ted Baker and T. Jack Robinson. Read more

A Derby

March 10, 2023 | Bird Dogs, Short Stories | Comments

In the hearts of true all-age pointing dog devotees, nothing is so important as a talented derby. A derby is a two-year-old. What defined a talented derby: potential for greatness as an all-age, or adult, competitor. And greatness in pointing dogs involved many talents. But the one always recognized: excitement, the ability to produce it. Read more