Busy Week 1

It's hard to believe that we have been on the road for a week already. After a wonderful visit and dinner with friends in ND last Weds nite we arrived in Denton, MT on Thursday. The Epagneul Breton trial was hosted by a couple well known to horseback American Field trialers with their lovely home serving as base for the trial. Butch (Nelson) had arranged with local landowners to use their private properties as the trial grounds. This was a wild bird trial and the habitat and bird numbers were excellent with dogs finding sharptails, Huns and pheasant. At the trial banquet we had the opportunity to meet several landowners; they were what one would expect from multi-generational Montana ranchers in their humility, openness and love of the land.





It was fun to see so many other EB's and the club members were friendly and helpful to us even though we made it clear that this was just for fun for us and our priorities remain with hunting. Jack did us proud by finding and handling 3 separate roosters and a group of sharptails as well as he always has when hunting and he was awarded Reserve (runner up.). Jack is probably less proud since the judges informed us that handler error kept him from winning 1st place. But being true to the species, Jack's love is unconditional and he seems to forgive his owners for our flaws.


The weather was great over the weekend but has heated up this week, restricting our hunting to a couple of hours in early morning. We are parked at a MT WMA (wildlife management area) on a dead end road that sees about one vehicle a day and we can walk out the door and to hunt in any direction. Yesterday it felt great to open 4 kennel doors and let Jack, Dee, Storm and Tweed rip across the fields and coulees. Sharptail and Huns: its what's for dinner.
Look really closely to see the dogs in this first pic, that's how they roll out here.











Just down the road is the beautiful Judith River and today we took a pleasure walk along the river with the dogs staying cool swimming. It is a picturesque area and when we found a chimney from a long-ago cabin we talked about the fact that even very long ago, people found enough pleasure in the same things that we enjoy today to build there despite the hardships of this countryside.






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