We have returned to the Nez Perce grounds for this Test 5. This test has a strong south wind making this a crosswind series with a downwind flyer. The test site is situated on the side of a hill with an outcropping of rocks running up the left side, around the top and part-way down the right side. A dense grove of trees border the entire backside. The rocks block the view of the fall for some dogs due to the wind catching the duck as it comes out of the winger. The handler can move laterally if they need to handle a dog that is out of sight because of the rocks. The test will not run in order due to the honor and the handlers with multiple dogs. When the handler gets settled on the line, he/she signals that they were ready.
The first bird is at an angle to the left from the mat. The gunners are in a well-brushed blind behind a clump of pines. The bird is launched to the left landing in a clearing at 97 yards from the line. Bird #2 attracts the dogs and handlers attention with their duck call. The dog must swing to the right and see a bird launched high in the air landing close to the top of the hill at 87 yards from the line. The handler then swings all the way to his left where the flyer comes from a well-dressed blind and the drake is shot at a hard angle back to the left landing at approximately 104 yards from the line.
The Land Blind is situated between the line of birds #1 and #2. The handler must send the dog up the hill, through the gap in the rocks, navigating both a crosswind and rocky outcroppings. There is an orange ribbon tied to an evergreen laying on its side 93 yards from the line. When a handler completes this test, he moves to the right and becomes the honor dog.
At 2:56 pm, "Yeti" and handler Mark Atwater came to the line as Test Dog for Flight A. He received a no bird when the judges declared that the winger bands were set too tightly and the bird was being launched too far. At 3:01 pm, the team returned to the line. He picked up the flyer first in excellent fashion and the right-hand bird was next. Yeti went to the area of the blind, turned right and quickly went out to the bird. Yeti had a nice hunt in the area of the fall of the middle bird before scooping it up. The blind was completed in short order and the entire test took a total of five minutes.
"Wyatt" and handler Annette Pacheco came to the line at 3:08. Wyatt went straight to the flyer. On his right-hand bird, he had a very nice mark. On the middle bird, Wyatt went up through the rocks and had a quick hunt before he got his bird and he had a very nice, two-whistle land blind.
We watched the first nine dogs run this test … the wind was in the handler's favor on the right-hand bird. Several dogs had more trouble navigating through the rocks on the middle bird with two having to handle. Everyone did an excellent job on the flyer. All of the handlers were able to negotiate the terrain and retrieve the blind. This test was approximately five to six minutes per dog.
