but I know many of you have a keen interest in them and I try to keep you informed of their progress.

At the West Texas Regional Elimination Trial last month my Molly dog won and is now the NSTRA West Texas Regional Champion. And she will be for eleven more months!


And my Red dog was first runner-up:


This is the shogun I used for field trialing this Spring. Until I started writing it up I believed that it was an FN. But now I'm not sure of that. It is a 12 gauge, serial number: 38XX, choked 0.006" and 0.024". Chamber is currently 2-3/4", minimum wall thickness: is 0.035", minimum wall thickness at end of chamber is 0.095". It has 27" sideclipped barrels and wieghs 6lbs 3oz.
Stock dimensions are 14-7/8 x 1-9/16 x 2-7/16, castoff is a 1/4" at the heel, 1/2" at the toe. Extractor gun with a straight grip, splinter forend and auto safety. It has a black rubber pad pad, no trademark. Also sports sling swivels.

Here is Saturday's scoreboad:


And Sunday's:

Congratulations Mike. Not a thing in the world wrong with being proud of your dogs or your children!...Geo

Congratulations! beautiful dogs and a beautiful gun to go with them.




.

Congrats. Mike. Always enjoy the updates.

Congrats on the dogs! Thanks for the sharing the story!

I really enjoy things with passion. Both dogs and owner have that. congrat's

Folks, let's straighten the record. Molly is actually MY DOG and I once loaned her to Mike cause he just had a bunch of turd hounds. I figured he needed a touch of class so he wouldn't embarrass himself. Well, that rascal not only didn't give her back to me but he forced her to hunt for birds. Totally ruined the dog....she was my best rabbit getter. Darnit! It's so bad he won't even let me pay for the dog food, vet bills, bird lease, etc. And I can't even pick up my own birds I shot over MY DOG--noooo, Molly gets all the fun. Sometimes life (and friends) just ain't fair...


Congratulations, Mike...I knew she'd finally succeed teaching you how to find birds.

Mike's hounds aren't "show dogs" but real honest to goodness hunting dogs. Here's Buddy and Red with a few of MY birds last year:



And a snapshot of Molly and Red along with one of Mike before he lost his razor (I think I prefer the whiskers).

Nice commitment to the dogs, pretty gun too!

Congratulations to you and your dogs Mike. Will you be entering one of those beard growing competitions in the future? I start growing mine on Halloween, and shave it off for Easter. The savings on razor blades over time may have paid for at least one gun. That is a nice gun too. Do you know what the word "Cocktrill" on the bottom of the barrels means?

Belgian steel company. Actually "Cockerill". Based in Liege.

Edit to add: Sorry Mike, I'm a boor to forget. Congrats on the dogs. Well done. They may be good dogs but I've had a few of those. It's the trainer that makes the difference!

Congratulations to you, your wife and pooches. To accomplish this running a business and a one student shooting school really took some doings on your part. Gil

That's real cool, Mike. Congratulations!

Way to go Mike! Congrats to both of you! What a wonderful accomplishment!

Nice gun too.

Best to both of you!

Greg

Congratulations.

For the dogs, gun, and the impressive whiskers.

Ken

Congrats Mike!
Those Frenchies are sure something!!

Great dogs congratulations and running two dogs the same day is lots of work. Well done thanks for sharing

very lovely dogs (and very affectionate too); I miss playing with them at the gun club... nice looking gun also, but who the hell is that Michael McIntosh look-a-like? Is all that salad on the face supposed to make a better shooter?
Congratulations to those fine French Brittanies.....they do all the hard work.

Great dogs and gun. Bobby

Congrats. Are you making your shooting student shoot the Parker with the 3" of drop?

His progress might be kinda' slowed by that. Just sayin....

Best,
Ted

Gary, Gary,
The salad on the face !!
If you look VERY closely at the stock on his gun
you will see VELCRO, and that in concert with his
facial hair keeps his head on the stock

Mike, WELL DONE !
Yeee Hawww

Mike

Thank you all for the kind words and for tolerating my bragging.

As far as the beard I am most often told that I look like a young Robert Redford in "Jeremiah Johnson". We could be identical twins!

AM AKA JJ

I tried that beard thing last Fall on a Saskatchewan trip; it just made me look like Uncle Si...Geo

Congrats on a great day!!

Who is it gonna be?
Robert Redford, Brad Pit or AmarilloMike??

Congratulations Joe. Great dogs. Your dog handler is starting to come around too. b

George, I think that beard would go Boone & Crockette in the gray tree squirrel category.

The Robert Redford comparative imagery is a bit of a stretch, IMO, but my glasses have some scars on their lenses that could have distorted the image I was seeing. Still, I am reminded that one of the defs. for the word imagery is 'imaginary phantasms'.

I will say that said individual is a LOT of fun and I witnessed some very fine shooting on winged feral 'pigs' that he made with a Fox 16 last Monday.

I'm still trying to sort out who has trained whom, but the dogs I met were polite enough, more in the southern sense, verbal only until they could lick your hand, than in the Emily Post finishing school sense .. but we were in a feed lot, so that could have had something to do with it.

I think George got that beard out of a dumpster behind a bikini wax salon.

Good to hear from you Chuck! How is that four legged rocket doing?

Tracy is a fine shot, even if his sixteen was a pump.

That particular model 31 I was shooting was a fixed choke 20 using 26 grams of reclaimed shot.

I too am glad to hear from you, Chuck! Its been a spell. Hope that you are back out amongst'em & cooking ... both ways.

George, all I can say is that beard, aside from qualifying as Chuck suggested is about as unbecoming as anything I've seen. Best whack that thing off before you attract a Yeti;-);-)

We can probably come up with a razor of some sort once you get it scissored within a quarter inch or so of your skin.

Mike, TW, Stan, et al, good to see you guys are all still stirring the doublegun pot.



I've been distracted a bit with a new job and a new truck for the past year. Went down the modification path on it. Got a little carried away. King coil overs, Wilwood brakes, swaybars, boxed A-arms, tires, wheels, topper, 10,000 lumens of lights.


I only got out to hunt once this past season. My 25 year running group in SD finally ended their pheasant hunt gathering and my new job needed some attention.

Mike,
The 'rocket' took another season after KS to come around. Still runs big, maybe not quite so big, but can hunt in heavy stuff too, without getting too far out. She really handles well. Some retrieve in her, but not like yours. But an amazing nose. She can smell a quail from 100 yards and I've seen her stop, turn her nose up and bee-line 125 yds to a pheasant. Probably coulda been someones blue ribbon trial dog, with all that HOF bloodline she has. She turned into a nice handling dog.
Drew's little feller doing the T-bone back on my pointer last January.

"Gray tree squirrel category", "dumpster behind the bikini wax salon", "attract a Yeti"? I guess my beard pic was just a little too manly for the crowd here. Oh well, I'll know better next time!...Geo

Slick truck Chuck; glad to see you posting again.

George, at least no one said it looked like a merkin. And for the record, I didn't. Gil

Oddly enough, I thought I knew what a "merkin" was, but I looked it up anyway just to be sure. My Duck Dynasty beard was way too big, manly, and fuzzy to serve as a mere merkin, one would hope!...Geo