Grand Hunt attracts nation's top dogs to Q-C

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By Don Doxsie | Thursday, October 2, 2008 3:05 PM CDT | () comments

Through the years, the Quad-Cities has hosted all sorts of different national events.

We’ve had walleye fishing tournaments and kids golf tournaments and youth softball tournaments.

This weekend will bring something new: Perhaps the largest and most prestigious hunting retriever competition in the country.

The United Kennel Club International Fall Grand Hunt is expected to attract about 300 of the finest hunting dogs in the nation to the Quad-Cities for nearly a week of competition. The event, which begins Saturday at two sites on the Illinois side of the river, also will afford a rare opportunity for some local amateurs to mingle with the pros and see how their own black labs and golden retrievers stack up.

“I’ve never run a Grand before but as long as it’s in this area, I’m going to do it,” said Burt Fletcher, one of about 10 members of the Q-C-based Mississippi Valley Hunting Retriever Club that have entered dogs in the event.

“This gives the guys in the area who have these types of dogs a chance to participate without having to leave town and pay a lot of money to do it.”

Jeff Daniels, a Clinton electrician, will have two dogs in the Grand Hunt.

“I’ve always been a hunter and I’ve always had dogs, but this is the first time I’ve gotten into anything of this caliber,” said Daniels, who was a spectator at a Grand Hunt in Wisconsin a few years ago.

“If you’re a dog lover and you love the outdoors, it’s a great place to be,” he added.

MVHRC members such as Daniels and Fletcher are doing more than just competing in the Grand Hunt. They also will help operate the event. Daniels said he expects to be busy from 5 a.m. until dark all five days of the Grand Hunt.

“A lot of people are using up a lot of vacation time this week,” he said.

The locals also are helping some of the marquee names in the sport get acclimated to an area many of them haven’t seen before. This is only the fourth time the Grand Hunt has been held in the upper Midwest and the first time it has been in the Quad-Cities.

A majority of the competing pros are coming from out of town and running multiple dogs in the event. Many of them already have been in town for a week or so, spending time in the woods with guys like Daniels to tap into their local knowledge.

“A lot of these people are coming from the south so this is the first cool weather for some of these dogs,” Fletcher said. “A lot of them are coming from flatlands, too, and they’re not used to the rolling hills we have here. They need to get used to a different type of trees, too.”

The event is being coordinated by Mike Botts of Davenport, a member of the six-man national committee for the Grand Hunt. His dog, Pearl, was a grand champion in the spring hunt in Madison, Ga., but he has had his hands full just planning and preparing this event.

“I don’t have time to run a dog right now,” he said.

“We’ve worked on this for about a year-and-a-half now, and so have the local club members with the Mississippi Valley Hunting Retriever Club. It’s been a lot of work.”

Botts and others have remained busy this week, building platforms for the dogs at the water sites, trimming trees and doing other cleanup work.

He’s happy with the two sites that have been prepared and delighted with the turnout for the event. There will be 326 dogs competing.

“This is a pretty big turnout for this event,” he said. “The spring one in Georgia included 340 dogs, but the one last fall (in Michigan) only had 274. This one is right up close to the top in terms of the number of dogs.”

Don Doxsie can be contacted at (563) 383-2280 or ddoxsie@qctimes.com.