Dear Fliers,
I would like to take a second to clarify a couple things after some conversations I’ve recently had. First when I stated we felt good about the release, I was meaning that we felt confident that the storm had passed and visibility was good for the birds to be able to get oriented and leave without problems, which they did. I was NOT happy with the time we let the birds go. I was on the phone every 10 to 15 minutes with the driver from 7:45 until they were let go asking for visual clarification on conditions. The birds did not fly into the storm. It was moving North, and the birds flew South out of the storm. That was the only spot on the whole course that had storms that day. That has since been the best or equally as good of a day as we’ve had here. Not one day since the race has been a beautiful day for the whole 350 miles of the racecourse.
Now that being said, my mistake was giving the ok to let them go when we did on a longer race. I made a bad judgement call. I felt confident in the birds conditioning and training and truly felt that we would have birds home on the day, and had they not ran into some unknown factor I still think we would have. I am truly sorry that we didn’t, I know how much value there is on being able to see what your birds will do on a long tough race, and not having them come home the same day they were released really complicates judging your genetics. It’s obviously one of those races that you wish you could have back and not turn them loose knowing the results. The first 70 mile training toss this year saw a loss of 68 birds on a perfect weather day. I would never have let them out knowing that was going to happen. You just never know.
The main thing is to try and minimize chances for things like this to happen, and I plan to do just that. I am going to add to my rules that no race will be released later than 8:45 to take away any temptation no matter how good it may look at 9 or 10. So again, I apologize for the way the last race panned out. I am also not trying to take anything away from the birds that won. The mistake they made cost them many extra miles of correctional flying. It still takes a great pigeon to return home from a long tough race like that.
The next thing I would like to address is my decision to change the racecourse next year. It will still be a race from the North with at least two 300 mile races. It will just be on the east side of the mountain range that they now fly down instead of the West. My club has flown that the last 2 years with young birds and many previous years with old birds, and it seems to be a very stable racecourse with a few less canyons that can lead the birds astray.
Lastly, I will ship most of the birds back this week as long as I feel they have recovered from the stress of the last race. If you haven’t contacted me about your birds being shipped back or not, please do so as soon as you can. A text message is the best, but a call or email is also fine. If there are any special directions for shipping your bird or I need to ship to an address different from the one in Wincompanion, please let me know.
Cost for shipping:
1 Bird – $70
2 Birds – $80
3 Birds – $85
Thank you again for your support. Please call, text, or email with any questions.
Derik Alder
Plymouth Peak Pro Challenge
(208) 380 0994
tmrpr13@yahoo.com
