october from our prez It s here! Hunting Season 2016 has begun. I have butterflies thinking of the stories that will be created in the next few months. For over two decades I have been keeping a Hunting Journal of each year s events and bird count. I remember my dad writing in his Hunting Journal after his day of hunting. I never read them till many years later. Recently, I read his October entries of 1950. Oct 7, 1950: Big Day, Patti was born at 5:30 AM. Hunted ducks in the morning with Scoot Richardson. No luck. Went to Windham in the afternoon, got one red squirrel. It took a few years for my dad s genetics to kick in, but I know now why he was where he was on that October morning. I hope someday my children and grandchildren will read my journals and smile too. I am very blessed as I will get to hunt with my husband, kids and grandkids this fall, creating more memories and more pages in my journal. The Yankee Chapter was well represented at the recent LLBeans Hunting Expo. Thanks to all who brought their versatiles to show off their talents. Jason discussed with representatives at Beans some future support of our youth programs in exchange. Yankee Chapter has wrapped up another year of training and testing. I hope all the hard work will pay great dividends in the woods, fields and waters this fall. If you want to look up test results for your Yankee Chapter friends go to the NAVHDA website and look under Merrimack Valley, Sebasticook and Yankee Chapter. Test scores will also be published in an upcoming Versatile Hunting Dog Magazine. Please be safe this fall. I am blessed, once again, to have four dogs to hunt over. Tera at 14.5 is still willing and able to find me a bird. She cannot hear, so I use the vibration on my Dogtra collar to communicate, a bell and I always choose safe areas free of traffic. Raven, Tiza and Gnarly are also ready and very willing to hit the covers and hunt the marshes. Know that I will be sharing my memorable moments with you all this fall, please do the same. We look forward to your hunting stories and pictures, so please take the time to stay in touch. calendar NAVHDA Elections Oct. 15 - Ballots mailed out. Nov. 15 -- Ballots counted. Dec. 10 -- Election results reported to NAVHDA Secretary NAVHDA Annual Meeting January 27-29, 2017 Charlotte, NC Attention Yankee Hunters! Send us your hunting photos and stories! The next Barking Dog Express will be a double issue for November and December, emailed to you the first week in December. This is the great Yankee Chapter Hunting Issue, so send us your trophy shots, your bird dog scenes, your pix of great hunts and not-so-great hunts. Tell us the who, what, when and where in 50 words or less. Email anisfield@gmavt.net by November 21st. Again, be safe and have fun and take pictures! Patti. Gone hunting! visit us on facebook and at yankeenavhda.org. -- page 1 --
chapter news welcome new member: Eric Olsen, Kennebunkport, ME kenny king/bob bisson fund thank you donors! Don and Kelly Lucas treasurer s report Bottle returns from August clinic and fall test came to $18.86. Jim Hynson donated some decoys that were auctioned off at the test and netted the chapter $50. Thank you to Jim for the decoys. The Ugly Dog Yard Sale (see p. 5) raised $1163 for the KK/BB fund. The balance in the chapter checkbook is $12,379.95 as of 9/25/16. The KK/BB fund balance is $8504.28 as of 9/25/16. The balance in our Money Market is $17,749.11 as of 8/31/16. -- Cindy Tracy yankee test weekend scores Lisa Rinaldi Blue NA 112 PZI Scott Bayles Tori NA 91 PZII Matt McDermott Clover NA 112 PZI Elise Wright Izzie NA 112 PZ1 Kim Klein Isa UT 176 n.p. Denise Parlin Finn UT 190 PZIII Amancda Dyer Pete UT 195 PZI Matt Lorello Dylan UT 174 n.p. Tom Barks III Harper UT 180 PZIII Patti Carter Gnarly UT 198 PZI Jason Carter Gritta UT 204 PZI Misi Knutson Stella UT 199 PZI Bob Brey Tanna UT 192 PZII Joe Wadleigh Rosie UT 156 n.p. Betty Blackman Laddie UT 165 PZII Mark Cote Derby UT 191 PZII Andy Christie Cali UT 192 PZI Tony Cote Reiner UT pulled from test Robbie Shaw Nickle UT 168 PZIII congratulations to the yankee chapter s new versatile champions! Suzi Moore and Gaia Isabelle Edling and Jesper Al Watson and Birco DOGS ON DISPLAY IN FREEPORT The Times Record gave great coverage to the Yankee Chapter s dog demos at the LL Beans Hunting Expo, starting with this photo and caption: navhda news GUS ELLITHORPE, age 3, on the right, pets Autumn the hunting dog, sitting along side Gritta, as Jason Carter of the Yankee Chapter of the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association looks on outside L.L. Bean s flagship store in Freeport. 2017 NAVHDA Annual Meeting The 2017 Annual Meeting will be held in Charlotte, NC. Dates: 1/27/2017 to 1/29/2017 The Host Hotel is the Doubletree Suites - Southpark, Charlotte, NC. The Friday evening Reception will be held at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. -- page 2 --
member news We re really glad to hear that Chip Amergian is recovering well from his cardiac surgery. It s time to get on with some more positive post-retirement adventures! Terry Wilson, grandson Noah Place, Rudder and Tank had a terrific youth weekend duck hunt on Lake Champlain. Patti and Blaine Carter had a blast hunting ducks, huns and sharptails with Gnarly and Fergi in Saskatchewan. Lucky dogs! Congrats to Charles Ellithorpe on shooting this great bear! Jamie Grey writes, Goose season has been off to a decent start! I passed on a few birds to let a buddy shoot so I could handle Tucker and it paid off. Regained some steadiness. Betty Blackman and her grandson have a nice goose dinner planned, thanks to help from Laddie. Yankee Chapter member and guide Casey Mowers took Caleb Winders on a rail hunt. They report that it s a great way to teach your dog to be steady in a canoe. The Chaper sends good luck and safe travel wishes to Bill and Cindy Tracy s daughter, Katie, who is headed to Thailand for six months to teach English and math to kids. Cindy and Bill Tracy s Rivah and Joe Saltamachia s Cricket met the cracker challenge for the LL Bean demos. Pretty impressive pups! Bob and Deb Brey recently travelled to Colorado. Did they send family photos? No. Beautiful scenery? No. Just this shot of Mr. Brey collecting his big winnings! -- page 3 --
congratulations to all handlers and dogs for their great work at the fall test! Photos by Casey Barks and Nancy Anisfield. View these and lots more test weekend photos on our website: yankeenavhda. org. Check out the Yankee FaceBook page for more photos of this and other Yankee Chapter events! -- page 4 --
the bucket brigade... The Yankee Chapter has developed a tradition of dumping a bucket -- or dog bowl -- of water on handlers receiving Prize I Utility Scores. And we do love watching them scream! ugly dog yard sale Thank you to Terry Wilson and Ugly Dog Hunting for donating a pile of new hunting clothes which the Chapter sold on Saturday and Sunday of test weekend. The yard sale made $1163. All proceeds go to the Kenny King / Bob Bisson youth scholarship fund. Thank you Bill and Cindy Tracy for folding, stacking, selling, and overseeing the yard sale. Your hard work is hugely appreciated! -- page 5 --
from our director of training First, I am so proud of my wife, son and daughter who tested Utility on Saturday of the Yankee Test weekend. All three received PZ 1s. I watched them work very hard throughout the summer. Pretty darn amazing and most likely a NAVHDA first! To those Yankee Chapter members that tested this past fall.job well done! I was fortunate enough to train with many of you through the season. Your hard work has paid off. It s time now to relax and go hunting. Wild birds are great educators. They are survivors and their strong flush teaches a lesson. Woodcock often allow you to rework them but most likely not the grouse. Try to maintain the training as best as possible, especially if you are developing a young pup. Don t lose your pointing by allowing your pup to move into flush and chase behaviors. Hopefully, your whoa command will keep you out of too much trouble. Bad habits learned in the fall can be fixed in the spring, but it s much easier if they are not created in the first place. It is your decision. Consider making a deal with yourself: To get the most out of the training this summer, I won t shoot non-pointed birds. I would like to wish all of you good luck, and I hope that all your hard work pays off, too. I wish you a safe hunting season with many bird contacts. -- Blaine Time for Your Training to Pay Off on the road again: a few tips for hunting trips 1. Rather than stopping at highway rest areas and truck stops where the parking lots and dog walk areas have a lot of litter and potential hazards (think unhealthy dog poops, lots of antifreeze leaks, junk food wrappers), use the new texting stops a lot of the Interstates have which have less traffic and usually just a nice grass/wooded back drop to a turn off. 2. Another handy place to water your dog is by storage unit places. Usually no one around, usually set back a bit quiet, easy parking access. 3. Keep one of those awesome reflective metal mesh tarps on hand if traveling and making stops in hot weather amazing cooling effect used as a lean-to off a raised hatch. 4. If your dog will be riding in an unfamiliar crate or truck box, bring a towel or small piece of kennel blanket with familiar smells. 5. Go online and find emergency vets in the areas you ll be hunting in. Don t forget to bring a copy of your dog s vaccinations and/or medical record with you. Check out the Ruffed Grouse Society s National Woodcock Migration Maps: http://www.ruffedgrousesociety.org/migration-map#.v-u_4vkrjmm RGS started providing real-time tracking of the annual fall and spring American woodcock migrations in 2006 -- for the first time in history. It has continued each year since. The mapping system relies on daily migration data provided by their members and online readers. -- page 6 --
cranky yankees remember when you re shooting: get a clue before you see blue! This column offers advice by Nick Racioppi and Jason Carter about Maine s hunting laws and regulations. Is there a hunting regulation you don t understand? A situation in the field you weren t sure how to handle? Send the Cranky Yankees an email and let them look into it for you: Jason: jcarter@rsu1.org Nick: feathersfins@comcast.net Bird season is finally upon us and most of us are going through our gear and making sure we have every thing we need. Let s go through some laws to make sure we are on top of things before the season kicks off. Remember to be G.L.A.D. when you leave the house, it s hunting season(gun, License, Ammo, Dog). Here are some of the things you may want to double check... 1. Is your license and stamp signed and on you? 2. You can t have a loaded gun in or touching a motor vehicle. Which means don t lean it up against your bumper or tire when tieing your shoes or eating lunch. 3. You must be ten feet off a paved way to discharge a firearm. 4. Discharging a firearm within 100 yards of a dwelling is a mandatory one year license revocation. Not even your shot may pass through nor land within 100 yards. 5. Be sure to be wearing your orange at the opening of any big game season and don t forget about youth day. Be safe and wear your orange anyhow!!! (Solid orange hat, no brown bills, and orange on your major torso in serviceable condition.) 6. Know your bag limits for the game you re hunting. 7. Woodcock hunting time follows migratory waterfowl time-table of sunset. 8. Hunting is a privilege, not a right. Ask for permission. 9. You can t have lead on you while in pursuit of waterfowl. Woodcock not included. 10. Make sure your vehicle is registered and inspected. 11. As much as we would like to react after our best friend gets hurt by or caught in a trap, tampering with traps is a mandatory 5 year license revocation. 12. Double check all seasons and WMD s for those seasons. Be safe and ethical out there folks. Our tradition of hunting is based on maintaining good landowner relations. Show respect for all game we harvest and follow all rules and laws, so that we portray a positive image to the public and our game will be plentiful for the years to follow. Happy Hunting, Jason two empty shot shells... make a handy waterproof holder for firestarters like vaseline coated cotton balls. Insert one shell into the other and push the outer shell all the way down over the inner shell. -- page 7 --
camo fashion... Merrymeeting s Wicked Gnarly sported the latest in camo canine fashion in Canada last month, proving that stealth and style can indeed go together. Maybe. did you know... That you can use a watch as a compass? In the Northern Hemisphere, hold a watch horizontal with the hour hand pointing at the sun. A line bisecting the angle between the hour hand and the number 12 points south. What does the lion say to his friends before they go out hunting for food? Let us prey. What do you get if you cross a telephone with a hunting dog? A golden receiver! What did the turkey say to the turkey hunter? Quack! Quack! Quack! in your game vest... Sutures. In an emergency, dental floss can be used to stitch wounds closed. Multi-use tarp. Carry one large trash bag rolled up with an elastic in your bird vest for use as a tarp, raincoat, ground cover, signal flag, sling or solar still. Crampons. Slide a wool sock over the toes of your boots; the wool fibers will be sticky on smooth ice. Firestarters. Your choice: the wax covering from a small packaged cheese like Bonbel (kneaded into a ball) or a stick of lip balm. Wrap either with toilet paper or stick some dry tinder to it, then light. Tourniquet, leash or muzzle. A shoelace easy enough! An avid duck hunter was in the market for a new bird dog. His search ended when he found a dog that could actually walk on water to retrieve a duck. Shocked by his find, he was sure none of his friends would ever believe him. He decided to try to break the news to a friend of his, the eternal pessimist who refused to be impressed with anything. This, surely, would impress him. He invited him to hunt with him and his new dog. As they waited by the shore, a flock of ducks flew by. They fired, and a duck fell. The dog responded and jumped into the water. The dog, however, did not sink but instead walked across the water to retrieve the bird, never getting more than his paws wet. This continued all day long; each time a duck fell, the dog walked across the surface of the water to retrieve it. The pessimist watched carefully, saw everything, but did not say a single word. On the drive home the hunter asked his friend, Did you notice anything unusual about my new dog? I sure did, responded the pessimist. He can t swim. always expect the unexpected! -- page 8 --
WILDLIFE FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY This report created by the American Wildlife Conservation Partners (consortium of 40+ wildlife and habitat conservation orgs) was published for general education and given to both the Trump and Clinton campaigns as recommendations for future conservation. It really wraps up the whole view of conservation efforts and needs in the U.S., public and private land needs, Farm Bill issues, stats, some history, etc. The report can be viewed or downloaded via the links below. The American Wildlife Conservation Partners (AWCP) is not an organization per se; rather, it is a consortium of 42 organizations, representing over 6 million individual members. AWCP is designed to facilitate communication within the wildlife conservation community and between our community and elected and appointed officials and policy makers at the federal level. Many successes have been made possible through the cooperation of dedicated conservationists within the private and public sectors. Still, the future of wildlife conservation and our hunting heritage faces many challenges. Wildlife for the 21st Century: Volume V is the fifth in a series of recommendations from the American Wildlife Conservation Partners (AWCP) beginning in 2001. AWCP is a consortium of 42 organizations that represent the interests of America s millions of dedicated hunter conservationists, professional wildlife and natural resource managers, outdoor recreation users, conservation educators, and wildlife scientists. http://sportsmenslink.org/resource-center/wildlife-for-the-21st-century-volume-v http://wildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/conservation_wildlife21centuryreport.pdf http://wildlifepartners.blogspot.com/ tips for crate training from Precision Pet Products 1. Allow your dog to explore the crate on his or her own. You can toss some of the pup s favorite toys or treats inside and show interest in the crate to encourage curiousity. Leave the door open. Never force your pup into the crate and always praise them when they enter on their own. 2. Once your dog enters and exits willingly, close the door for a few seconds or a minute. Stay close to the crate and praise the pup while inside. Then, let the pup out in a calm, quiet manner -- do not make a big deal of it. Do not release the pup if he or she is barking or crying -- wait until the pup has settled down to open the door. 3. Gradually extend the amount of time your dog spends in the crate. Your first few absences should be less than 30 minutes. Continue to crate your dog for a few minutes each day when you are home so that crating does not always predict you leaving. -- page 9 --
contacts, sponsors & info yankee board of directors President: Patti Carter 33 Simpson s Point Road, Brunswick, ME 04011 207-725-8229 mmkennels@myfairpoint.net Vice Pres: Nancy Anisfield 1067 Silver Street, Hinesburg, VT 05461 802-482-2561 anisfield@gmavt.net Secretary: Dani Friend 288 Chopps Cross Road, Woolwich, ME 04579 207-389-4470 dani.friend2012@gmail.com Treasurer: Cindy Tracy 37 Eider Lane, Topsham, ME 04086 207-725-4562 trac4fam@comcast.net Dir. of Testing: Jason Carter Dir. of Publications: Judie Bayles Dir. of Judge Development: Terry Wilson Dir. of Training: Blaine Carter Dir. of Gunning: Matt Lorello Test Secretary: Sandy Runyon Dir. of Grounds: Dick Dilley Delegate at Large: Bill Tracy barking dog guidelines Litter Ads - 1/4 page max size free for members $15 / month non-members Business Card Ads - $25 /year members $35 / year non-members Display Ads - 1/4 page max size $35 / year members ISSUE APPROX. MAIL DATE Jan/Feb January 1 Mar/Apr March 1 May May 1 June June 1 July/Aug July 1 September September 1 October October 1 Nov/Dec December 1 SEND US YOUR STORIES & PHOTOS! Please send us your photos and stories -- we love to hear from you and are always looking for material. Send up to three photos and stories 250-400 words. Besides your hunting and training stories, please share recipes, tips, dog humor and anything else you think the Not Your Normal Chapter folks might enjoy. Send them to anisfield@gmavt.net by the 20th of the month. Thank you all! -- page 10 --
classifieds Raymond Dyer has ducks for sale, contact Raymond for more info 729-8333. Pigeons for sale: Merrymeeting Kennels is downsizing their homing pigeon numbers for winter. Darn critters are still sitting on eggs! These are very strong flyers as they spend the day in the trees and flying laps around the local air space. $10.00 each or trade a pair for a bag of cracked corn. 207.725.8229 HYNSON S SPORTING GOODS STILL OPEN FOR BUSINESS!!! One Old Town Loon Kayak 120 Blue -- $300. One Old Town Loon Kayak 120 Green -- $300. One Old Town Kingfisher Canoe (Fiberglass) Blue -- $250. One Remington 11-87 Automatic 12 ga Super Magnum Black Matt Finish -- $450. One Remington 870 Pump 12 ga Super Magnum Black Matt Finish -- $150. Contact:Jim Hynson 274 Blodgett Road, Pittston, ME 04345 207/582-7048 jrhynson@roadrunner.com -- page 11 --
Test day survivor. Photo by Denise Parlin -- page 12 --