Below is part of the Reporting of the Championship. Watch for a more detailed report in an upcoming issue of the American Field.
Dakota Saskatchewan
Covey Rise Offlee Amazin takes title; Hytest Spymaster Runner Up
By Doug Meyer
The Dakota Saskatchewan Shooting Dog Championship held forth on the beautiful prairie just north of Kensal , North Dakota James River bottom. Despite the differences between course one and two and three, there were many more similarities then would be expected – number one being huge amounts of real estate where a dog could show its moves. All in all, it was a fair test for the prairie shooting dogs with birds encountered along every course.
Hosting the Dakota Saskatchewan championship is the Northern Lights Club with Bill Holtan the main force. Don Dack, John Larson and Todd Manns assisted with dog wagon duties, gates and the aforementioned shuttle process between courses one and two. Laurel Holtan kept everyone fed at lunch time and was a great hostess despite being in a cast from a broken foot suffered while putting up a loose horse a few weeks prior. Saturday night, a Calcutta
Austin Turley dropped by to ride the last morning as he was traveling from Montana to the Region 19 Championship in Wisconsin
.Judges for the Championship were the well known Jim Michaletz, transplanted Minnesota building contractor now living in Goodman, Missouri and Doug Meyer in pharmaceutical sales residing in Tonganoxie, Kansas. Jim has winning pointers and setters he competes with at the amateur level and keeps major circuit dogs with Alan Vincent including Jetsetter, the setter champion who represented the breed so well at Grand Junction
The Winners and Others
Covey Rise Offlee Amazin was released onto the first course and put on an edge running show thru the wheat fields and fencerows for the first thirty minutes. At 34, the pointer male styled up attractively along woodsline and a deer exited as Shawn Kinkelaar began flushing. Taken on, the beautiful ground coverage continued for 15 more minutes into an alfalfa field ahead. His bracemate, Mesaba Iron was spied pointed in the center of the alfalfa while Amazin was moving out of sight ahead. When a covey of Huns was flushed for Iron, Amazin was noticed pointing some fifty yards ahead and to the side out of sight of the original action into one of the small rock piles that dot this land. Kinkelaar flushed the area and asked for relocation when a single Hun lifted on its own outside the grassy rock pile with Amazin stopped and shot over. Released from here, he headed forward to the leeward side of an east-west fencerow to establish point at the end. Kinkelaar easily flushed an adult hen pheasant from grass beyond the fencerow with Amazin standing proudly throughout. His finish was strong to the front to claim the Dakota Saskatchewan Championship for owners Gary Hertz who was riding and Drs Thomas and Robyn Morgan. This is Amazin’s first championship having tasted runner up laurels twice previously.
Hytest Spymaster, big going setter male was taking in large chunks of the prairie with each stride for handler Jim Tande. He was deep at times and required some effort to get him turned as the course angled away after some of his bigger casts. The race was not exceptionally smooth but was not beyond open country shooting dog standards. At 37, after rimming a good piece of country to the west of course, he was searched for by scout but ultimately spied by handler partially hidden behind hay bales in an alfalfa field. As Tande approached, Spymaster was stretched out high and tight with a large covey of Huns exploding directly in front of his stand. It was a nice find after an aggressive cast with Spymaster’s manners above reproach. He continued to rim the first course and finished far to the front at time. Spymaster, brother to Hytest Skyhawk is owned by Dr. Mary Beth Esser of Wisconsin
The brace of the trial as far as ground coverage belonged to Elhew Hannabell and Butch Cassidy. The rolling prairie pasture course was absolutely scorched by these two with Shawn Kinkelaar and Bill Holtan respectively directing their charges ever forward at range. There were impressive hunting swings across the huge creek bottom and deep onto the side hills with scarcely a patch of cover missed in between. Those riding knew they were seeing quite a show that would surely result in finds but ultimately nothing was pointed during the prairie rimming hour. Disappointing that they were not rewarded but one race we’ll keep in the memory bank. Merrihill’s Carolina
