We are situated on a side hill about 75 yards from the waters edge, the mat faces SW, the wind is coming out of the North at about 2-3 miles per hour. The skies have cleared to be partly cloudy.
There are several irregularly mowed hillsides on both sides of the pond.
The first bird to be shot in this water triple measures at 225 yards through the middle of the test and is a hen pheasant flyer, shot to the right over a hedge row landing in heavy cover. (HF)
The second bird to be shot is to the right and short in distance to the flyer along the treeline. This dead hen pheasant is thrown to the left, hard angle back and converges toward the flyers station where the gunners are sitting on a side hill. This bird lands in heavy cover of varying vegetation. This bird will be referred to as the short retired (SR) and measures at 203 yards.
The third and final bird (DF) to be thrown moves the dog across the test to the far left. These gunners are sitting on a very long point and throwing a drake mallard flyer to the right, landing in a piece of water behind the point. This bird measures 118 yards, and is sluiced once the bird hits the water. There are also a half a dozen Avery mallard floating decoys strategically placed in the water in-line with the fall area of the bird before the point. This is a wide open triple which is sure to get some answers from the dogs, as there is much room between gun stations for the dogs to get lost and put on large hunts in order to find the birds.
After the dog has retrieved all of the marks he will then move 5 yards to another mat to the right of the starting line and honors the next working dog.
Test time is averaging 10.5 minutes per dog to complete.
