Series 4 for Flight C was a walk-up land/water triple with a diversion bird and a land and water blind using all mallard ducks. The right-hand walk-up mark is the flyer which is shot and then sluiced hard back left into a small cove with several decoys 42 yards from the line. The dogs had to swing to the left to see the middle water mark which was thrown to the right and landed 86 yards from the line on a peninsula that had medium high cover along the edge and cut grass where the bird landed. The left bird thrown to the left landed in medium high cover 48 yards from the line. Upon returning with the flyer, the diversion bird is thrown to the left landing on a peninsula with manicured grass. The land blind is just outside and 24 yards deep of the left bird. The water blind is approximately 73 yards on the right bank of the pond to the left of the flyer.
The left bird station was very well hidden behind three very large clumps of pampas grass. The middle bird station is directly behind the same pampas grass but much deeper and well brushed. The left and middle bird station create a mom (left hand bird short) and pop (middle bird deeper). Coming out of the holding blind, handlers walked west and at the time we visited this test the wind was out of the west at 7 mph.
The handlers appeared to be split on their decision of what bird to pick up first. As an example, with the few dogs we watched, some dogs selected to pick up the left-hand bird first, but a couple selected the flyer. The line to the left-hand bird was through a short area of cut grass into thick medium cover. The line to the flyer was an angle entry into the cove in which the flyer landed for a very short swim to retrieve the bird. The diversion bird was thrown when the dog was mid-way back from the flyer. The line to the diversion bird was angle entry into a very small cove and then it angled up on to a peninsula to retrieve the bird. The line to the middle bird was a line on land paralleling the shore with an angle water entry, across to the peninsula up the bank to retrieve the bird. The line to the water blind was angle entry into the very first piece of water, then angled across the small peninsula through the scent of the diversion bird, before entering back in and across the mouth of the small cove where the flyer was shot.
