I made a big mistake though and without thinking started hunting the area in the wrong direction with the wind coming behind us. Don't know what I was thinking. Not thinking at all more like! This caused Molly to pull further forward and work the gound back to me. As the Snipe are 'jumpy' at the best of times here we ended up flushing a lot of birds too far out as they were getting up well out in front of the dog who was hunting well out anyway to take account of the following wind. I soon saw the error of my ways and we changed direction. Molly started to hunt much closer and we got 2 nice flushes as a result. On the first I was not concentrating on the dog and was focused too much on the shooting and Molly moved a bit on the flush. I corrected her and the next bird I concentrated on her and she was steady while my friend fired at the low departing Snipe.
In the next field of high rushes and dryer ground we started to hunt and Molly had a great find and flush on a Woodcock in the middle of the field. I wasn't expecting a woodcock to be out in the middle of field like that. Luckily I was on the mark this time and the Woodcock folded on the first shot. Molly marked the fall easliy in the open ground and retrieved well. At that stage the rain was really pouring down so we decided to call it a day.
This was a bit of a mixed day. I was not happy with my own performance, as first hunting the wrong way for the wind and then making the error of concentrating on shooting Snipe and not on the dog. However, I was happy that we got a few nice flushes of Snipe and also a good find on the Woodcock and nice marked retrieved. I will be more disciplined in future. There is another trial coming up at the end of the month that I have entered and I would like to get plenty of work done for that. I might bring Molly to work with me one or two days in the trailer as there is nice ground along the river Shannon beside my office that I can do some work in.
I'll report back soon.
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