Contributors

• Andrew Campbell

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  Andrew Campbell is a relative newcomer to the great sport of field trialing, but has been very fortunate through circumstance and opportunity to have met a number of supportive mentors and fellow competitors. As a result, he has served as the reporter for several wild bird trials and major all-age championships. He is also lucky to have a job and a wife flexible enough to take time off in the summers to train bird-dogs. He is an avid grouse hunter but prefers to compete with his vizslas and pointer in horseback trials.

• Arleigh Reynolds

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• Barbara Teare

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  Barbara has reported major all-age and shooting dog events for The American Field since 1994, covering amateur and open stakes across the country at the regional and national levels. Though she is most at home in the bobwhite quail venues of the southern piney woods, her reporting assignments have taken her as far as the northern plains, the Minnesota grouse woods, and the rolling hills of upstate New York. While following the action at the U. S. Open, the Continental Championship, the Masters Championship, the National Amateur Free-For-All, the National Derby Championship and other landmark pointing dog competitions, she has observed performances by most of the top contenders of the last decade. Her sporting dog fiction and feature articles have appeared in The Pointing Dog Journal and Field Trial Magazine. Barbara was the Executive Director of the Bird Dog Foundation in Grand Junction, Tennessee during the late nineties. She and her husband, Ron, manage a private quail hunting preserve on the Alabama coast, where they maintain a kennel of pointing, retrieving and flushing dogs.

• Betsy Danielson

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  Along with her husband, Jerry Kolter, Betsy runs Northwoods Bird Dogs, a pointing dog breeding and training facility based in east central Minnesota. Their focus is on English setters and pointers used in the pursuit of upland birds — particularly ruffed grouse and woodcock. Both have been involved in all aspects of bird dog breeding, raising, training, handling and walking field trial competition for more than 20 years.
  
  Betsy manages the business and takes special interest in whelping litters and the early development of puppies.
  
  By education and profession, Betsy is a horticulturist, landscape designer and writer with more than 35 years of experience. She founded Dazzle Gardens in 2005 and there she maintains her passion for plants and writing.
  

• Bill Allen

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  Bill was born in 1925, in Atlanta and grew up in the Piedmont and mountains of Georgia. He shot his first quail at age 11 over his Uncle Pat Greer’s Llewellyn bitch, Kate. He hunted throughout Georgia and the Carolinas in his youth, afoot. He received degrees from Emory ('46) and the University of North Florida (’80). As a newspaperman, he covered crime, politics (redundancy?) and then sports, for wire services and the Atlanta Constitution, until 1957, when he left news papering to become The American Field major circuit chronicler. He wrote an outdoor column for 10 more years for the paper. He ran his first field trial dog in 1949. He has not hunted afoot since 1960 (except for wild turkey).
  
  He married college sweetheart Betts in 1946 and lost her to respiratory failure on their wedding anniversary after 57 years, in 2003. They had three sons, Michael, Keith and Victor. The latter succumbed in 1996. Betts and Bill traveled extensively in Europe and around the Mediterranean. They made homes in three of their favorite places on Earth: Hiawassee, GA inside the Chattahoochee National Forest; Jekyll Island, GA, in the tidewater Sea Island chain and in Glen Saint Mary, FL, just a few miles from the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp National Park.
  
  Bill owned several winners, his favorite a black pointer, Blue Monday, trained and placed by Colvin Davis. Bill won some amateur all age stakes, including the National Amateur Championship with Mrs. Eleanor Livingston’s Kilsyth Sparky. A health crisis moved him out of field trials before 1980, when he took up a career in psychotherapy. He lives now near his two surviving sons in Alpharetta, GA and writes periodically for The American Field and regularly on his own Blog site.
  
  Bill was elected to the Field Trial Hall of Fame in 2000 and we are honored to have him as a contributor.

• Bob West

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• Brad Harter

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• Chris Mathan

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  Chris competed in horse sports at a young age and in various dog sports since 1989. She has been involved in field trials for the past 22 years, training and handling her pointers as well as campaigning them with a professional handler in grouse trials throughout the northeast, mid-Atlantic and mid-west. She was the secretary of the Maine Bird Dog Club for several years and is currently V. P. of the Mid-Coast Maine Field Trial Club and member of the Black Ash Grouse Trial Club in Pennsylvania. She has reported championships and classics and has judged field trials, most notably the Miss Lesley Anderson Derby Classic, the Woodcock Futurity, the John S. Gates Memorial Derby Classic and the Pelican Derby. Chris is an avid grouse and upland bird hunter. Through her professional life as a designer and outdoor photographer specializing in the shooting sport industry, she has had many opportunities to meet and work with knowledgeable and respected participants in the field trial community throughout the country. Chris moved to southwest Georgia — the heart of quail country — in 2015. Along with Mazie Davis, she founded Strideaway in 2008.

• Craig Koshyk

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  Craig is an artist, photographer, writer and upland bird hunter. He is the founder and president of PrairieView School of Photography and Dog Willing publications. He is the author, photographer and publisher of Pointing Dogs, Volume One: The Continentals. This extensively researched book is the definitive guide to the versatile gundog breeds of Continental Europe, presenting an in-depth study of the history, development and current status of the pointing dog. When not traveling across the world, Craig resides in Winnipeg, Manitoba with his wife, Lisa and their dogs.

• Craig Peters

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  Craig owns American Field registered Keystone Setters Kennel. He is an amateur grouse dog hobbiest who competes in cover dog, walking and the occasional horseback trial with his English setters. He is also an avid grouse, woodcock and upland bird hunter. He keeps only 2–4 dogs in his kennel, breeds the occasional litter—always seeking the next champion. Originally from Lancaster, PA, Craig started hunting as a 9-year-old acting as the dog beating the brush with a homemade billy club so that his uncle could shoot the pheasants and rabbits that existed the other side. From there, he graduated to chasing pheasants and eventually was introduced to Penn’s Woods and ruffed grouse, quickly becoming enthralled in hunting them with English setters. While at Penn State, Craig got his first dog and began to participate in field trials with the first grouse championship (the PA) for the kennel coming in 1999. Since then, he has had two more Keystone dogs become champions as well as other champions produced from the kennel.

• Dale Hernden

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  Hailing from Michigan, Dale has been involved in field trials since 1974 when he bought his first dog. He co-founded the Ruffed Grouse Field Trial Club in 1975 and was the founding chairman of the National Amateur Grouse Championship in 1978. He was a director of the Beaverton Grouse Dog Club, of the Grand National Grouse Championship and, for 10 years, secretary of the Grouse & Woodcock Invitational Championship.
  
  He then moved to the horseback game, had dogs with a professional handler and competed in amateur championships, spending time in the southern part of the country annually attending the National Free-For-All and National Derby Championships. He served as Secretary of the Michigan Open Shooting Dog Championship for five years and briefly as a director of the Bird Dog Foundation.
  
  In the last few years he has turned more towards grouse hunting and fly fishing although he continues to have dogs on both the grouse and shooting dog circuits. He has judged numerous amateur and open championships including the National Amateur Grouse, Grand National Grouse, Grouse and Woodcock Invitational, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania Championships as well as the Grouse Futurity and Puppy Classic in the woods, as well as a number of horseback championships including Region 4 and 13 Shooting Dog and All-Age Championships and most recently the Empire Championship.

• Dennis Lutynski

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  Bird hunting with two older brothers in oversized boots, trying to keep
  pace. A Brittany was a spaniel, days were short, and guns long. Today free time is spent evaluating puppies, walking the woods and prairies, shouldering a fitted 16 gauge. Field trialing and riding horses with my wife Becky, daughter Jael, and son Seth is extraordinary. The videos produced retain treasured times.

• Dr. Ron Deal

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• Frank LaNasa

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  An avid birdhunter for over 42 years, Frank became involved in field trials some 24 years ago. He and his wife Jean, have worked as a team breeding, developing and trialing bird dogs mostly in the Midwest. Having served as secretaries and presidents of various birddog clubs and hosting trials for the past 20 years, Frank currently serves as president of the Minnesota Federation of Field Trial Clubs and AFTCA Trustee for Region 19. Frank’s and Jean’s dogs have won open and amateur championships on the Grouse Dog, Shooting Dog and All-Age circuits. Also Frank continues to help out, when his schedule allows, in judging capacities in all three of these trial circuits throughout the country.

• Fred Rayl

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  Fred Rayl began his career with bird dogs as a youngster along with his brother Eddie. Sons of Hall of Famer, William F. (Bill) Rayl, they could not have had a better mentor and teacher. To this day, Fred acknowledges the significance of his father’s positive influence, in terms of bird dog training/breeding and work ethic on his own long and successful career. After graduating from high school, Fred followed in his father’s footsteps and began working with him. In 1980 Bill won the National Championship with the great Builder’s Addition with Fred scouting. Just two years later, Fred handled Heritage’s Premonition to that illustrious title with his dad this time scouting. After serving in the military, brother Eddie also became a professional bird dog trainer and handler, running Shooting Dogs. The Rayl name is indelibly connected to the names of many great field trial bird dogs...many which are in the Field Trial Hall of Fame: Builder’s Addition, Evolution, Fiddler, Fiddler’s Pride, Little Diamond and Nell’s Rambling On. Fred trained and handled countless dogs to all-age championship wins in the south and on the prairies during his long career as a professional handler. Today Fred runs a successful business from his home in Sylvester, Georgia training bird dogs for amateurs and bird hunters alike. In the summers, he travels to his camp in South Dakota to train. Ever willing to answer questions on bird dog training and field trials, Fred can be reached by phone at 478-972-1764.

• Gavin Goldblatt

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  Gavin owns, trains and handles both GSPs and Pointers, in both Hunt Point Retrieve trials and Pointing Championship Trials. The former can roughly be equated to US Shoot to Retrieve trials, the latter to All-Age trials. He has frequently acted as a Field Steward and a learner judge at both of these different type of trials. He lives in Cape Town, and is a member of the Western Cape Field Trial Club and the Border Field Trial Club.

• Jerry Kolter

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  Jerry has been hunting birds with pointing dogs since 1975. He has about 26 years of dog training, judging and upland bird guiding experience. He bred, owned, trained and handled dogs who have won at the highest level of field trial competition, including many Dog-of-the-Year awards and national championships. His understanding of dog behavior, handling ability and proven training techniques are nationally known and respected. Jerry and his wife, Betsy, operate Northwoods Bird Dogs in Sandstone, Minnesota.

• Joe McCarl

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  Joe has over 27 years experience training pointing dogs in his native Pennsylvania as well as in Texas and the North Dakota and Manitoba prairies. He entered his first trial in 1986 and became a professional in 2004. He has been successful on the grouse trial circuit, winning several major grouse championships including the National Amateur Grouse Championship, the Grand National Grouse Championship twice and the Grouse and Woodcock Invitational Championship with his 7 x champion Hard Driving Bev. He has judged walking and horseback stakes throughout the middle Atlantic states including the 2009 Lakes States Grouse Championship. He has also judged the 2007 Amateur Shooting Dog Championship in Stoughton, Saskatchewan, the 2011 Pelican Derby in Broomhill, Manitoba and the prestigious GA-Lina in 2008. Along with close friend and neighbor, Russ RIchardson, Joe was instrumental in converting the 30-year-old Armstrong-Umbel Classic to its current format as the only two-hour endurance event in the grouse woods. Joe’s Hard Driving Kennels is located in Guys Mills, PA.

• John P. Russell

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  John Russell literally grew up with bird dogs — a family story describes a bird dog puppy chasing John through the house and pulling down his diapers as he tried to climb onto the couch. Following graduate school, John returned to Western Kentucky where J. D. Boss decided it was easier to “recruit” him to field trials than it was to catch him “poaching” the birds on the field trial courses on the West Kentucky Wildlife Management area, home of the Quail Championship Invitational — thus beginning an involvement with field trials spanning forty years and counting. A protege of Hall of Famers J. D. Boss, Arthur Curtis, and Floyd Hankins, John “paid his dues” in the sport serving in every capacity from horse wrangler, marshall, scout, bird releaser, club official, circuit official, field trial chairman, reporter and judge. Since the retirement of J. D. Boss, John has served as the President of the West Kentucky Field Trial Club and Chairman of the Quail Championship Invitational. John breeds, develops, and runs his own dogs — having made more than thirty trips to the prairies in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and North Dakota. He has had winners, primarily in amateur competition regularly since 1974 — most notably National Amateur Runner-up Champion Solid Hilltopper. John is an devotee of the all-age class and has judged open and amateur major stakes from Canada to Florida and from North Carolina to California.

• Kim Sampson

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  Kim, who hails Utah, from grew up riding horses with her friends and tagging along behind a father who had a passion for hunting upland birds over pointing dogs. Through those early experiences, she developed a life-long love for everything outdoors, especially if it included a dog. Kim attended her first field trial in 2001, but the hook wasn’t firmly set until 2003 when she acquired a fiery pointer puppy and started competing in AF/AFTCA open and amateur events. As much as she loves field trials, nothing can surpass the enjoyment she finds hunting the wily chukar partridge with her dogs in the rugged hills of the West.

• Mazie Davis

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  Mazie has been involved with field trial/bird dogs for well over 40 years, training, handling and scouting for her husband, HOF trainer/handler, Colvin Davis. She started reporting field trials over 20 years ago and has reported most major All-Age events in the United States and Canada, taking some judging assignments through the years as well. Mazie and Colvin operate Davis Kennels and Davis Quail Hunts from their home in Minter, Alabama. Each summer they travel to Broomhill, Manitoba with their string of All-Age dogs and a limited number of hunting dogs they train for their clients. They spend early September organizing and hosting the Manitoba Championship, John S. Gates Memorial Open Derby, and the Broomhill Open All-Age Classic and Derby. She and Chris Mathan met at the 2006 National Championship, soon formed a close friendship and founded Strideaway in 2008.

• Randy Anderson

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• Ryan Frame

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  Ryan Frame came to Earth from the planet Ziemba in the sixth century A.D. and laid dormant for centuries, finally emerging from the pod at the tail end of the Eisenhower administration. There are no bird dogs as such on Ziemba, but rather creatures called “Schlepplinks” (long story, don’t ask) and so Ryan covers bird dog events here on earth for a major newspaper on Ziemba. He began beaming reports back to Ziemba in 1991, but adds, “I don’t know how they will be received on my home planet. Ziemba is pretty far away and, at the speed of light, the reports won’t be arriving there for another 36,000 years.”
  Since he was writing reports for the Ziemba Courier Dispatch anyway, and because he didn’t know any better at the time, he agreed to do some American Field reports. He also works with dogs at a kennel in Clearfield, PA, wrote some other articles for sporting dog magazines, and has, in addition, spent much of the last 10 years studying syntax, word origins and linguistics in an effort to prove that there is indeed a difference between the terms “unproductive” and “nonproductive,” a difference which he can conceptualize but cannot yet express in language.
  
  According to past and present employers, he also still has a tendency to lay dormant for long periods of time even during working hours.

• Scott Chaffee

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  Scott’s interest in bird dogs developed through the pheasant hunting he did with his father and brothers while growing up. With great enthusiasm, he soon took on the training and care of the dogs. Always involved in competitive sports, Scott bought his first field trial pup, an English Setter, in 1978 after graduating from college and thus combined his love of competition with his love of bird dogs. He became a professional trainer and handler in 1985. Scott has won over 40 championship placements and several Dog of the Year awards. Dogs he has developed have also won championship titles for their amateur owners. He lives with his wife, Tammy and their daughters, Amber and Shannon in Clare, Michigan where he and Tammy operate Pioneer Kennels.

• Shawn K. Wayment, DVM

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  Shawn knew at the early age of seven that he was afflicted with an obsession for bird dogs and horses; he knew then, that he wanted to become a veterinarian. After bouncing on his head one to many times as a parachuting medic with the 82nd Airborne Division, he decided to go to veterinary school. He realized his dream in 1997 by graduating from Washington State University and went into mixed animal practice. Currently Shawn has a companion animal practice in Castle Rock, Colorado. His special interest is in the veterinary care of sporting dogs and, specifically, in canine anatomy/physiology and reproduction. In the fall, when not in the office, he can be found roaming the uplands of North America chasing his bird dogs.

• Sherry Ray Ebert

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  Sherry has been training bird dogs for 48 years. Along with HOFer, Harold Ray, she was part of the illustrious Smith Setter team producing 25 champions with a combined 65 championship wins over the course of 32 years. That includes two National Shooting Dog Champions, four Top Shooting Dog awards, and Sherry won the Setter Derby of the Year award herself plus many others as part of the Smith/Ray team. Since then, Sherry has also taken some Irish Setters to championship titles and has helped countless amateur handlers better their skills working and handling their own dogs. She believes helping others is even more rewarding than going out and winning herself. She was a co-founder of the famed Ga-Lina Amateur Field Trial Club and also worked diligently for several years on the AFTCA's 20th Century Fund. Sherry spends her summers in North Dakota training dogs with her husband Kyle and part of the winter in Georgia.

• Steve Groy

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  Steve began hunting over bird dogs in 1962 during the pheasant hay-day in the southern half of Pennsylvania. He started training his own dogs in 1978 and competing in quail trials the following year. In the early 80's, his interests shifted to wild bird — grouse and woodcock — trials. He became a professional trainer in the mid 90's putting championship titles on dogs in all three regions of the cover dog circuit. He lives in Muncy, Pennsylvania with his wife, Rita who is also involved in the rearing of their occasional litter of English setters.

• Steve Standley

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• Tom Davis

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  A lifelong bird hunter who grew up in western Iowa, Tom Davis got hooked on pointing dogs at a young age after reading Jim Kjelgaard’s Big Red series, Robert G. Wehle’s Wing & Shot, and Dion Henderson’s Algonquin. While his first dog, an Irish setter, didn’t pan out as a hunter, he’s owned some pretty fair country bird dogs over the years, most of them English setters. Davis has been writing about dogs, the things we do with them, and the people who fool with them since the mid-1980s. He currently serves as Editor-at-Large for Pointing Dog Journal and Shooting Sportsman, Senior Editor for Sporting Classics, and as a columnist for Just Labs, Pheasants Forever, and Quail Forever. His many books include The Tattered Autumn Sky, The Orvis Book of Dogs, Why Dogs Do That, and The Art of Remington Arms. Davis lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with his wife Joan and setters Ernie and Tina.

• Tom Word

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  Tom was reared on a sheep farm in Southwest Virginia and treasures his agrarian roots. He graduated from Virginia Tech in 1959 and the University of Richmond’s Law School in 1961. He has since 1961 practiced law in Richmond with the firm McGuireWoods, where he remains of counsel, and since 2006 in partnership with his son Scott as Word & Word PLC, specializing in tax and fiduciary services. He has been an avid upland bird hunter and pointing dog trialer all his adult life and enjoys reporting trials. He also writes fiction and non fiction pieces about bird dogs and trialing, and has published three collections of short stories, None Held Back, A Little Competition and The Ninth Pup (the last available on Amazon.com).

• William Smith

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  A friend and co-worker invited William to his first field trial in 1981. He has been involved in field trials ever since. The first trial he attended happened to be held on the Ames Plantation in Grand Junction, Tennessee. Little did he know that the history and significance of Ames would have such an influence in his life. He was later invited to be a member of the Memphis Amateur Field Trial Club, when it was run on the old Como, Mississippi grounds, and the Ames Amateur Field Trial Club, contested over the hallowed grounds of Ames. He was invited by the late Ted Gardner to judge the Border International at Stoughton and that invitation exposed William to the grandeur of the prairies. The prairies quickly became his place of choice to enjoy a true all-age dog. Later he was invited to become a director on the board of the Broomhill Field Trial Club, a position he still enjoys. He feels fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to Manitoba each September to enjoy the people, the prairie, and the purpose of field trials. William has judged approximately 30 all-age championships (amateur and professional) and has also had the privilege of reporting major championships from Canada to the deep south.