28th October 2008

On Saturday morning I took Molly out to a boggy area in which I had met a good few Snipe the previous week. I had a friend with me who kindly agreed to shoot for us. The plan was to get Molly hunting the bog for Snipe and to ensure she was steady to the flush and shot during the session. The morning was very very windy which we hoped would help the Snipe to sit tight in the rushes. We started hunting into wind and Molly started off with good pace and power. Covering her ground well although she was tending to be a bit right sided in her pattern. I was able to correct this by turning her a little sooner on the right and not blowing a turn whistle at all on the left of her beat. She soon flushed a Snipe and was steady to the flush and the subsequent shot from my friend. However, with the very strong wind the shooting was going be very difficult. We progresses up and down the bog and had about 3 flushes and shots all of which Molly was rock steady to and she was marking the birds away nicely. On the final stretch following a good flush a Snipe was knocked (excellent shot given the strong wind conditions). Molly remained steady and following a pause on the drop I sent her back for the bird that she did not see falling. She went out nice and straight towards the ditch that the bird fell beside and was tending to pull left towards some cover when I wanted her to get out to the right. After a couple of attempts she took the right direction and got into the fall area and started to hunt. She made a drive into a clump of rushes and up went the Snipe and away across the adjoining field and out of our area.

I was very happy with the way Molly hunted today and she kept up a good pace from start to finish. She was 100% steady to the flush and shot also I was able to get her into the right area for the wounded Snipe (a good 50m blind retrieve). All in all it was a very successful training exercise and hopefully I will get a retrieve on a pheasant when the season opens here next Saturday. We are entered in a Novice Trial on the 5^th November so we have a lot of work to do in a short space of time. I am confident though that we will get on ok and not disgrace ourselves anyway.