The Derby National is pretty much a failure when it comes to attendance, qualification, and eligibility. I think a qualifying level national event would be more attended and do more to bring new people into the sport and keep them. Use the points system AA stakes use for qualification but allow dogs to enter who have two wins during the year, Disqualify dogs who place in an AA stake during the year. I think you would get 100+ dogs and give people who focus on that stake another goal to shoot for. It could be an Amateur or owner handler event to benefit the Amateur and avoid having a bunch of pros dominating the entries. What do you think?
How about Qualifying National event?
Sabireley
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200k buys you a ton of land in BAMA!
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Not here in the southern part of the state, I'm just a cross the line in Molino/Pensacola stuff in that area of AL 12k to 20k and more now , even way out away from everything.
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They should be.
Remember that all those "legends" have gone home with their tails between their legs too, and they kept coming back.
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15 years ago when I thought I might retire in AL we paid 9K per acre for 20 acres near Camp Hill and that was the going rate in the area.
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I was lucky enough to compete against Delma this past winter in the derby along with some other legendary Amateur's with big time derby dogs and also top derby dog professionals. I found it pretty neat to compete against those people. And to make it more enjoyable, I was able to place above them in a trial or two as well. And I have no idea what I am doing, so that was encouraging. So, it can happen, just gotta keep grinding.
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Even a green ribbon isn't bad when you look at the handlers and dogs that didn't finish the trial.
too close to water. up here we only have meth heads and they blow stuff up and we can buy it cheap! and of course chicken houses!
Ill keep going. got a 3rd and a few jams in Qs.
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155 Acres For Sale in Ripley County, Naylor, Missouri
155 acres +/- for sale in Ripley County, Missouri. One of the prettiest mixed-use farms in the area offering 70ac +/- improved pasture, fenced and cross-fenced on post with a beautiful 3ac stocked lak
636K
Nice! I went to college in Springfield and loved it.155 Acres For Sale in Ripley County, Naylor, Missouri
155 acres +/- for sale in Ripley County, Missouri. One of the prettiest mixed-use farms in the area offering 70ac +/- improved pasture, fenced and cross-fenced on post with a beautiful 3ac stocked lakwww.landwatch.com
636K
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I have to agree with Ted. The sport is dying for the average Amateur trainer. If you don't have, grounds, water, equipment and deep pockets why bother. It's expensive enough. I'm at a point where I continue to wonder why in the hell I put myself through the torture of trying to compete when I can't check some of the above boxes for quality training. I don't like sending my dog to a pro but I've had to with this pup. Kinda defeats the purpose of training your own dog. Not down on pro's just want to be more involved and it's not possible when your dog is a couple of states away. If this dog doesn't work out, I believe I'm done. It kills me to say that but reality is dictating otherwise.
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I think we all agree that retriever field trials are, and have been in decline with the number of individual participants (not dogs) for years, the unanswered question, is there a solution, and if so what is it.
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from one am to another, in a similar situation.... what do you think would work to change this?
Would you be willing to pay a yearly fee to have access to grounds? If so, how much? Would you pay $500/yr 1000k/year? 2000k/year? Something like hunting leases operate, I guess. Would you be willing to work with other retriever enthusiasts with state and federal officials to acquire public training lands? I have been considering how to form some sort of group in MO that would do this, but I really don't have connections in the retriever community here and I live literally hours away from anywhere that has/holds field trials (or hunt tests)....
People lease hunting grounds all the time. There are websites and FB pages where they advertise this. Is this something that would be possible to do for retriever training?
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I was in a group that leased an old gravel pit for retriever training. It worked out well. Owner took it back over.
There are so many issues playing into use/management of public lands for dog training and events. Sporting dog trainers are a minority compared to other use groups such as fishermen and hunters. Work done solely to benefit dog uses isn’t typically Pittman-Robertson or Dingell-Johnson reimbursable (these programs pay for most public land management in many states). Work to develop and maintain quality retriever use sites is not cheap. Frankly, some “dog people” don’t do a good job in representing their groups to other public lands users and agency personnel.
The achievable near-term goal needs to be shoring up political and agency relationships to find ways to insure continued use of what quality public lands are currently available. Show a willingness and commitment to expend time, labor, and funds on maintaining existing lands, then use that success as leverage to move forward down the road.
The achievable near-term goal needs to be shoring up political and agency relationships to find ways to insure continued use of what quality public lands are currently available. Show a willingness and commitment to expend time, labor, and funds on maintaining existing lands, then use that success as leverage to move forward down the road.
I pay $50/month for the place I lease now but would pay 2x that for a bigger property with better water. I think I currently have a good deal. It began as a dove lease and I worked out a deal with the landowner.
I've used dove lease craigslist ads as a way to get contact info for landowners. One was open to leasing to me but after seeing the property in person it wasn't a good fit. Another issue with finding training grounds is that what makes good training grounds is pretty specific. Lots of the water near me is either too small or surrounded by woods which isn't great. I want water surrounded by pasture.
I've also started using onx hunt app to find what could be nice pieces of water and training grounds near me. The app gives landowner name and tax address. I've sent some letters a few weeks ago but haven't heard back yet. I will keep trying. It isn't really possible to knock on doors since houses are behind gates at most places.
I'm curious what people have done to find places to train for themselves.
I also emailed my retriever club members to see if there was club interest in finding training grounds for the club to use and there were only a handful of people in the club that were interested; this would be a place that is free to club members and paid for by the money earned from our hunt tests. For people that don't live in a rural area having something like this is necessary for introducing young dogs to birds and gun fire and advancing older dogs.
Unfortunately the place where doctor Aycock judged his last National is becoming an anomaly amongst public own lands as it pertains to FT's.
It continually gets better and more user-friendly for our purposes.
We owe a big thank you to the active local club and to movers and shakers such as Mitch, Brooks & Dennis etc. Having someone active with dogs such as Tim Kreher in his position has great benefit to us all
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There are lots of municipal golf courses in the Midwest that small towns lose tens of thousand of dollars every year on🤔
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