This series is named "Bald Eagle Stole My Bird" because it really did happen!
Third series is our first water test of the invitational. This test has short and tight marks and double blind. There are two in-throws that are also bridge marks and they are fairly tight to each other. The third mark is off to the right side with a short swim and up and out.The marks are thrown around the horn from left, middle, and right. The marks are very short in distance.
Mark #1 is on the far left side of the test and the gun station is well hidden behind a large patch of trees that are along the waters edge. This mark is thrown from left to right and angled slightly inward and lands along the edge of tall cover on an island and this is a bridge mark, distance to the bird fall area was around 30 yards.
Mark #2 is the middle mark and the gun station is hidden up next to some smaller shrubs. This marks is thrown directly inward toward the line. This mark is also a bridge mark landing on a small island in heavy cover and the bird fall area is around 60 yards from the line.
Mark #3 was moved at the last minute by the judges and is not shown correctly in the test diagram. This mark was moved farther to the right as to save time with a small piece of water to navigate up front and climb up and out across a road into taller cover around 50 yards from the line. This is the go bird.
This test forced some handlers to handle their dogs mostly on the middle mark.
After the marks are picked up a double blind is required. The judges did designate the far right blind to be retrieved first and then the water blind on the far left to be retrieved second.
The land blind was moved and the test diagram is incorrect, the blind was moved and is an under the arc blind around 50 yards. Dogs must cross a small channel of water and move up and out across the road and to the right of go bird mark.
The water blind was the most difficult blind of this series as it required the dogs to enter the water, swim through a narrow opening and very close to mark #1 fall area and swim out into the open water to the far left shoreline to pick up the blind. The distance was around 75 yards from the line to the blind.
Side note: This series was named "Bald Eagle stole my bird". Setting this test and running a few dogs, a bald eagle did in fact snatch a dead bird from the field. Ironically, saw this happen in almost every series durning the MAI. There is a great picture of the bald eagle with a dead duck flying away.
