Ringneck Festival
- Thread starter Dakotazeb
- Start date
Natty Bumpo
Member
Good Luck with the land and the birds and the weather, George.
Shoot straight and shoot often.
NB
Shoot straight and shoot often.
NB
Dakotazeb
Well-known member
Thanks for the good wishes, guys. As with anything a little luck is always invloved. Weather looks to be great. Actually too warm. Forecast is for sun and temps in the mid 60's. We will have 5 dogs there and you can only have 2 on the ground at a time so we are able to rotate them.
bobeyerite
New member
Wishing you all the luck in the world George. Do good as you usually do........Bob
Dakotazeb
Well-known member
Ringneck Festival Update
We had a great time, as usual, at the Ringneck Festival in Huron, SD. Here’s an update on our weekend.
Friday afternoon I ran Elle, my Brittany, in the Bird Dog Challenge. She was the only Brittany. There were 35 entries and we finished in 11th place. She found all 5 birds which were harvested with 5 shells. She had 4 full retrieves and 1 partial. Our time was 11 minutes and 30 seconds. I was very please with her performance and we could have very easily been in the top 5. My buddy with his GSP finished in 5th place. Unbelievably, the dog that won it was a 20 lb. English Field Cocker.
After we finished our runs at the BDC we went to a range and shot 2 rounds of skeet. None of the 6 of us on our team had ever shot skeet before so it was a new and unique experience. For first timers we all did very respectable. I took the top honors with rounds of 19 & 18.
Today we had the Competition Hunt. We drew some awesome land. The guy had 2 quarters of CRP that has only been hunted by him and his daughter. There were hundreds of birds and we never got into the second quarter of land. Birds were in bunches and very skittish, flushing very wild and ahead. We kept busting them up and moving them around the quarter and then they held a little better. We got our 18 birds but did not have any shells left. Each of the 6 hunters gets 4 shells to harvest 3 birds. If you shoot 3 birds on your first 3 shots (as yours truly did) you can pass your remaining shell to one of the other hunters. Once you harvest your 3 birds you put your gun away and become a walker. Unfortunately we had 2 or 3 members that had an off day. We could have very easily had 18 birds with 3-4 shells left. It didn’t help that we lost 2 birds that were knocked down. There was just so much scent that the dogs couldn’t pick up the scent from the 2 cripples. Out of 28 teams we ended up in 5th place. Too bad, because we surely could have won it. Each member of the winning team got a new Browning Citori Lightning 12 ga. Oh well, maybe next year. In 12 years of participating in this event, we have place in the top 5 eight times and have won it twice.
We had a great time, as usual, at the Ringneck Festival in Huron, SD. Here’s an update on our weekend.
Friday afternoon I ran Elle, my Brittany, in the Bird Dog Challenge. She was the only Brittany. There were 35 entries and we finished in 11th place. She found all 5 birds which were harvested with 5 shells. She had 4 full retrieves and 1 partial. Our time was 11 minutes and 30 seconds. I was very please with her performance and we could have very easily been in the top 5. My buddy with his GSP finished in 5th place. Unbelievably, the dog that won it was a 20 lb. English Field Cocker.
After we finished our runs at the BDC we went to a range and shot 2 rounds of skeet. None of the 6 of us on our team had ever shot skeet before so it was a new and unique experience. For first timers we all did very respectable. I took the top honors with rounds of 19 & 18.
Today we had the Competition Hunt. We drew some awesome land. The guy had 2 quarters of CRP that has only been hunted by him and his daughter. There were hundreds of birds and we never got into the second quarter of land. Birds were in bunches and very skittish, flushing very wild and ahead. We kept busting them up and moving them around the quarter and then they held a little better. We got our 18 birds but did not have any shells left. Each of the 6 hunters gets 4 shells to harvest 3 birds. If you shoot 3 birds on your first 3 shots (as yours truly did) you can pass your remaining shell to one of the other hunters. Once you harvest your 3 birds you put your gun away and become a walker. Unfortunately we had 2 or 3 members that had an off day. We could have very easily had 18 birds with 3-4 shells left. It didn’t help that we lost 2 birds that were knocked down. There was just so much scent that the dogs couldn’t pick up the scent from the 2 cripples. Out of 28 teams we ended up in 5th place. Too bad, because we surely could have won it. Each member of the winning team got a new Browning Citori Lightning 12 ga. Oh well, maybe next year. In 12 years of participating in this event, we have place in the top 5 eight times and have won it twice.
bobeyerite
New member
Congrats on the good shooting. I knew you would do well. Like you say maybe next year will the win time...........Bob
Natty Bumpo
Member
DZ,
CONGRATS in the excellent showing by your young Britt Elle and yourself in the BDC. WAY2GO.
But dont discount what a good fieldbred ECS can do on any gamebird anywhere. They hunt much bigger than their size might suggest. We spent last week chasing wild roosters not too far north of Huron. There were a couple of good Labs plus two of the most popular pointy dog breeds also in camp with us. I'll just say that the Cockers held their own with the other breeds in producing good shootable chances for the guns. Very few roosters held for points except in certain very thick covers in our week on the farms we hunted.
My crew are grouse/woodcock specialists but enjoy a week of matching wits with John Ringneck every year. My guys, both males, are in the 33-35# range before the season started. I posted pics of my guys on that hunting dog picture thread earlier this fall.
NB
Dakotazeb
Well-known member
NB, what made the win by the ECS all the more amazing was that the dog and owner were from Florida. The dog had never seen a pheasant prior to it's run in the BDC. I guess it had a little trouble on the first retrieve since it was something new and larger than the dog was use to, so it got a partial retrieve score on the first bird but retrieve the next 4 to hand. It did this in a time of 5 minutes and 35 seconds. The dogs' name is Barney.
