Mike Hester ran Quickmarksman's Hard Terms in the NC All Age Championship and had a great race with 1 outstanding find. We think we were winning the trial until we lost him with 4 min. left. He was found with the tracker pointed after time. He has come close 2 years in a row at this trial. Maybe our luck will change in the future.

Mike Hester ran Fort in the Southern Pines open derby at Hoffman in march and placed 3rd. He ran a great race but didn't find birds. They were had to come by and only 1 derby pointed birds.

I ran Easy Terms (Tad) and Quickmarksmans Fortune (Fort) in the Amt All Age and the Amt. Derby at Hoffman in Dec.09. I placed Tad 2nd in the all age and Fort 2nd in the derby. Both dogs did a very good job.

My daughter and I traveled to Kildeer Plans in Oct 09 and ran Easy Terms (Tad), Quickmarksmans Hard Terms (Joe) and Quickmarksmans Sportster (Snook) in the Amt. Pheasant Championship. We had a great time and I was pleased with the dogs performance even though we didn"t win. Tad ran a good race and had 2 limb finds and was in contention until I let him get on the wrong side of a large ditch. He had a hard time crossing the ditch and that kept him from having a good finish. Snook was running a good race and had 1 find however I was unable to flush twice so I picked him up at about 40. I lost Joe soon after the start and found him pointed with the tracker. The dogs do a better job than I do.

We ran Tad in the amt. pheasant championship at Kildeer Plains Oct. 2009. He had 2 very good finds and a great race for aout 40 min. until I let him get on the wrong side of a ditch he couldn't cross. I was able to go back to a crossing and get him but it hurt his finish. I'm sure he was in contention until this happened. It is tough running a big going dog on grounds the handler doesn't know. Tad did his part but I did not do minre.

Robin and Hunter Gates handled Fort to two first and one runner-up placements in the derby trials in Canada this summer. Robbin says Fort runs big but still finds a lot of birds. He is advanced in his training and we hope he will adapt to the southern habitat and quail without any difficultly. We hope to have him ready for the derby championships in Jan. Thanks Robin, Hunter and crew.

Returned home on Sept. 26 from my training camp at Shields, ND. We were there two months and had one of our best summers. The weather was cool in Aug. and Sept. and we had a good bird crop. ND had a late spring and above average mosture so everything including the bird hatch was about four weeks late. We had enough crp, hay and pasture land so the crops being late didn't effect us much. After the crops were harvested there was still a lot of young birds. I was very pleased with most of the dogs I took. I feel like I got a lot accomplished and the young dogs were able to learn to hunt and find birds. It is easy to make a good bird dog if they know how to find and point wild birds. I have several good field trial prospects and and even more good hunting dogs. I'll be adding more dogs to my web site soon. Please check our listings and thanks for your interest in our Kennel.

I will be in ND from July 29 until Sep. 26, 2009. I can be reached at 864-812-2730. If I am not available when called please leave a message and I'll return the call asap.