Field Trial Recollections

2021 Florida Open All-Age Championship

Fifty-four dogs, including two English setters, were drawn for the Florida Open All-Age Championship, starting January 10, 2021 at Chinquapin Farm, Branford, Florida under the experienced eyes of judges Cecil Rester of Angie, Louisiana and Woody Watson of Leesburg, Georgia. Read more

Chinquapin

A magic place For fifty years For bird dog folk Where quail live wild Neath every pine And run when pointed Before they fly Read more

The Florida Championship or How I Became the Reporter

January 22, 2020 | Florida Open All-Age Championship, Remembrances | Comments

How was I ever so lucky As to end up the Reporter Of the Florida Open All-Age Championship? Me born a mountain boy sheep farmer? Luck pure Luck The main force in my life And I’ll bet in yours Some good some bad of course Read more

Chinquapin in January’s Second Week

January 15, 2020 | Florida Open All-Age Championship, Prose | Comments

Chinquapin Where it all begins As dawn emerges from dark And quail awake From their huddled sleeping state Read more

2007 Florida Open All-Age Championship

January 10, 2020 | Field Trial Championships, Florida Open All-Age Championship | Comments

Funseeker's Rebel Named 2007 Champion, House’s Snake Bite, Runner-Up, Chickasaw Bud, Top Qualifier On the sandy hills of Chinquapin A bird dog casts into the wind With each breath he seines for scent Of Bobwhite quail–that southern gent Read more

25 Years of The Florida Championship, Part 2

January 13, 2019 | Field Trials, Florida Open All-Age Championship | Comments

January’s second week Brings them South to Chinquapin In dually trucks pulling gooseneck trailers Loaded with horses and bird dogs determined Determined to win On this hallowed ground Where quail aplenty are to be found Unless they decide they will not be found That is the mystery They all seek to solve How some days or hours They’re everywhere And others they vanish Into thin air or some say the Read more

25 Years of The Florida Championship, Part 1

January 12, 2019 | Field Trial Championships, Florida Open All-Age Championship | Comments

(Starts Sunday, January 13, 2019) This January marks My twenty-fifth year Reporting the Florida Championship What fun it has been To carouse with like-minded men Their dogs and their horses And the Chinquapin quail Read more

The Test

April 20, 2018 | National Championship, Short Stories | Comments

Carl Dean slept little. He was up as usual at five. He and his partner Fred Archer were living for the duration of the National Championship in a former tenant house on a farm ten miles east of the Ames Plantation. This was the trial’s last day, and Fred Archer’s sole entry, Arkansas Andy, would go down in the afternoon brace. Carl would scout. His inability to sleep last night Read more

A Rivalry

February 16, 2018 | National Championship, National Free-For-All Championship, Short Stories | Comments

It’s the 1930s, times are desperate, the Great Depression has the world in its grip, yet for a few at the top nothing has changed. So it is for Harley Keen and Richard Bain, owners of businesses whose products are still in demand at prices producing a profit. Keen’s is tobacco, Bain’s is whiskey, legal again with Prohibition’s repeal. They are sports, and their shared passion is bird dog field Read more

Priceless Memories

January 18, 2018 | Field Trial Recollections | Comments

Field trials have brought me priceless friendships. Among the most cherished was with Ed Mack Farrior and his lovely wife Floyd. They arose from an invitation to report and later judge the National Amateur Free-For-All Championship at Union Springs. Read more