05 07 05 306 W, 3 I - + 164 - 130
Missouri Valley Open Land Marks
Deceptive triple. Very tough. Field went from 54 dogs to 22 dogs. No handles called back. Order was middle (250), right (300), Flyer (270). All birds thrown left to right. Early in test, right hand gun was very hard to pick up. Wind blew steadily from left to right.
Path to flyer required traversing two pieces of water. Direct path to middle bird would require that dog drive through the middle of the tree - which, of course, they did not. Path to right bird was through the two bushes up front, into water (at angle), out of water at angle.
Dogs would flare tree and water going for middle bird and end up long or in flyers. Dogs that went right of tree would wind right hand bird, pick up that bird and have difficulty taking the line back to the middle bird. Even dogs that skimmed the tree on the left and were right of the holding blind had difficulty. Several never checked down and ended up high and dry.
On the right hand bird, work was similarly varied. Some dogs broke left of the tree in line with the middle bird, and got hung up in the old fall. Others took the same path and drove through to the right bird. Some dogs went hard right and kept on going. Others went hard right and then hooked in directly to the bird.
Dogs that went directly at the bird tended to square their entry into the water, taking them left of the bird, then square even more exiting the water, taking them even farther left.
The work was varied and interesting to watch. The two retired birds were very well placed.