PLEASE RSVP BY
APRIL 08, 2011

2011_Banquet Postcard

Trial Season

Trial Season is set. Please go to the AZPDC forum at www.azpdc.org/bb and click “field events”.  From there you will find the dates, locations and trial chairs. As you know, we can always use help in a number of ways. The most useful way to lend a hand is to volunteer to haul the trailer up or back after a trial. The first event will be in Queen Creek and will be chaired by Tommy Chapa and Brian Smith. The first day of the weekend will be training for dogs, handlers and some judge training (learn how to judge our trials). It is not often we have events this close so be sure to let Brian or Tommy know early that you will be there. That will help us have the adequate amount of birds and supplies to put on a great event.

AKC Judging Seminar

Todd Fielitz has always been there for our club and many of you will never know the extent of what he does for us. This AKC judging seminar is one of many things he has lined up for us. This seminar will be held April 2nd at Marie Callendars at I-17 and Northern Avenue. The presenter will be Bonnie Hidalgo of AKC and the cost to attend is $25 per person. Food and beverages are not included in this price. If you ever wanted to become a judge or would like insight into the judging, here is your chance to learn. Please pass the word. We would like to have a full house on this to cover the expense of the event.

Banquet 2011

It looks as though our Banquet will be held on April 9th. We will need your help to make this a hit again. We need to start selling raffle tickets for those guns!!! Get some tickets and get to selling. If you can dig up fundraising opportunities, now would be the time to start looking into it.

Cabela’s Spring Outdoor Days

Spring Outdoor Day’s at Cabela’s is coming up in a few months. Please let me know if you would be interested. I was thinking we can cook hotdogs for donations and sell raffle tickets. Of course we will have dogs and look for new members.

Arizona Shooting Dog Championships (Kingman, AZ; January 24-28, 2011)

I want to thank Tommy Chapa, Paul Grogger, Steve Johnson, CJ Hamilton and John and Chrissy Crano for all of their help in making this an event that will forever be in our memories. I was glad we had you step up; remember it takes all of us to make it work. Below are the big winners:

Arizona Open Shooting Dog Championship

Winner: Hale’s Cool Hand Luke

Bruce Hale, Owner/Handler

Reg #:  1589257

Eng Pointer Male

Sire:     Spectrel’s Born Broke

Dam:    Latin Spirit

Ru Ch: Waygoing Hoot

Mike Stephens, Owner/Handler

Reg #:  15564883

Eng Pointer Male

Sire:     Canadian Brute

Dam:    Windsong’s Silver Charm

Bill West Derby Classic

1^st Place: K-Nine Tucaluta Chance

Ed Mayhew, Owner/Handler

Reg #:  1616435

Brittany Male

Sire:     Maxwell’s Blew By You

Dam:    K Nine’s Peek-a-boo

2^nd Place: Cash’n In

Jim Schultz, Owner/Handler

Reg #:  1621604

Eng Pointer Male

Sire:     No Limit Rebuy

Dam:    No Limit Belle

3rd Place: Sand Creek Holly

Dr. C A Hjerpe, Owner/Handler

Reg #:  1620804

Eng Pointer Female

Sire:     Wells Fargo First Dude

Dam:    Wells Fargo Mollie

Region 12 Am SD CH

Winner: Hale’s Cool Hand Luke

Bruce Hale, Owner/Handler

Reg #:  1589257

Eng Pointer Male

Sire:     Spectrel’s Born Broke

Dam:    Latin Spirit

RU Ch: No Limit Rebuy

Jim Schultz Owner/Handler

Reg #: 1610473

Eng Pointer Male

Sire:     Rock Acre Duramax

Dam:    Rock Acre Dreamgirl

Participation in our club

I wanted to take moment to talk to you about what has made our club such a huge success and to reiterate that we all should do a little bit more. This club was built and designed for pointing dog lovers to train, trial and even prepare those who wanted to go beyond to title dogs or compete. Now, since I have been around, I have truly tried to offer a diverse amount of activities with a heavy family influence. The culture of being family friendly is first on my list because we all have families and families are what our core foundation stands.

Our club hosts training days, non-sanctioned field trials, hunt tests, seminars, American Field events, community outreach events, banquets and youth events. Now most of us have a passion for a particular area and spend most of their time and energy doing that; which is understandable. However, if all of us just focused on our focus point, we couldn’t do all of these things that serve our entire club. So as a reminder, it really takes all us doing more than our one focal point to help our club serve ALL of our members. So when we do events, please lend a hand, even if it is not what you joined the club for. I promise you will be rewarded new friendships, personal gratification and just knowing you did your part.

As always, I miss you all and hope to see you at this month’s meeting. We have many new members, please introduce yourself and help them feel welcome. To our new members, I welcome you and ask that you please call or email me if you ever have any questions on how we operate and how we can serve you.

Arizona Quail 2010

It looks as though the quail season is going to be hit and miss for most hunters. What I mean here is that depending on the species of quail you are targeting will most likely tell you the results. Based on what I have seen and heard, the Gambels are better than average. The scalies are holding steady but not spectacular. The Mearn’s, well those little buggers are just plain tough to find this year.

My suggestion for gambels is to look at traditional covey locations and they will have good numbers of young birds due to the wet winter of 2009. Scalies are doing okay and should be still found in home ranges of past with few young birds. If I was going after Mearn’s I would do one of two things; First, I would look for birds in different and less popular locations, such as different mountain ranges. Second, I would wait for precipitation. The scenting conditions as they are currently are not desirable. It is extremely dry out there making less scented bird even more difficult to locate.

2011 Elk & Antelope Draw Recommendations

Currently, The Arizona Game and Fish Department are holding regional meetings to hear the voices of the hunting community on the current department recommendations for the 2011 season. There are not many meetings left, so if you would like to hear from the department and/or voice your opinion, you should try to make a meeting. The recommendations I have read show overall decreases in both Elk and Antelope tags for the upcoming season. I believe the regulations will be drafted in the next 30 days and published on the web as soon as January 2011. The deadline for applications will be in February 2011. So don’t wait, do you research now and plan for the deadline. Good luck on your draw.

February 2011 Hunt Test with Cochise Bird dog Club

Currently, we have committed to do a double/double hunt test with the Cochise Bird Dog Club in Sanoita, Arizona in February 2011. In order to do this we really need club participation for Secretary, Gun Captain, Gunners, and general helpers. So please check your schedules and consider helping with this very important AKC event. You can contact me or Todd Fielitz to let us know your willingness to help.

AFTCA Region 12 Shooting Dog Championships January 24-28 2011

The AFTCA Region 12 Championships is set to beginning late January 2011. Paul Grogger has graciously stepped up to chair this event. We as a club have committed to assist in the bird planting and bird maintenance for this event. Todd Fielitz and I are planning on being there helping and participating in this prestigious event. We would love to have some more club members there to lend a hand to help this event go successfully. You will see some incredible dogs from the Southwest competing and meet some truly great people. So please try to make it up to Kingman. The event is close to town. There are plenty of hotels, stores and restaurants. Oh yeah and there is cell phone coverage, so you don’t have to be out of touch. You do not necessarily have t be there the whole time. If you could come up for a day or two to help that would be a super help to the team.

AZPDC 2011 Field Trial Season

As of right now, Brian Smith and Todd Fielitz have selected the season locations for the 2011 season This year there will be some new areas that some of you have not seen yet. I have seen the list and all are great locations and will certainly offer the club an exciting year for our trials. Now is the time to voice your opinion to them if you would like to see something different. Better hurry though; we need to get applications in ASAP in order to begin on schedule.

As always, I miss you all and hope to see you at this month’s meeting. Take care and be safe. We have many things to be thankful for especially in light of the current economic conditions. So I pray that you all are safe and that your family is blessed during this wonderful time of the year. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

At the next meeting

Web Parton will be talking about snake avoidance and fielding dog training questions. He will have snakes for a demonstration in the parking lot.

Ed Rucker
AZPDC Club President

Annual Banquet
Well, I was very pleased with the banquet and participation from our members. I believe everyone had fun, enjoyed the food and everyone had a chance to buy or win something. The final tally of the fund raising should be available to view soon… I cannot wait to see the results. I want to personally thank you all for your help at the event and leading up to the event. A very special thanks to Tom Wheeling, Debra Krueger, Jim and Debbie Schroeder, Snow Aubel, Cedric Gerdes, Lance Gerdes, Gina Gerdes, Joe Felish, Todd Fielitz, Mike George and Joe Husband.

New Board
After another wonderful year of club happenings, this banquet brought us another fresh slate of board members. I want to personally thank last year’s board members for their selfless sacrifice and willingness to further promote the club.

I want to welcome this year’s new board members: Tommy Chapa, Pete Torres, Tom Wheeling, Brent Jacobs and Jim Cassara. I look forward to working with you all and I am hopeful for another exciting year for AZPDC!

April Trial & Quail Invitational
I wish I could have been there to enjoy the first event of 2010. I heard there were plenty of outstanding performances by our club members and their dogs. I also heard there was some confusion in regards to the interpretation of the rules… I am certain we have made that little easier to interpret now.

In closing, I want to say I miss you all and hope to see you soon.

Ed Rucker
AZPDC Club President

We also had our first field trial of the year that included the Quail invitational. The QI went off without a hitch and some of the new members did really well. As for the trial on Sunday, we got it done but we did have some issues with our newly adopted rules. I believe that we had a variation in the interpretation of the rules that led to many conversations that led to disagreements on scoring. Your board and officers will be working on this issue over the next few weeks to find a solution, or at least a better understanding. Many of you long standing members know that when we have this big of a family we are going to have differences of opinions from time to time. With all of the good people in our club, I have no doubt that we will move on and continue to be the best Bird Dog Club in Arizona.

In closing, I am glad to be back as your Vice President and looking forward to a great trial season.

Thanks for all you do for AZPDC.

Jim Schroeder
AZPDC Club Vice-President