By Durrell Smith
About four and a half years ago, while leafing through an issue of Garden & Gun at the grocery store, I found inspiration and, eventually, mentorship as I dove into the pursuit of learning about and developing bird dogs. A story in the magazine featured men who looked like me, on horseback posing with long-tailed, white dogs. Neal Carter was the head kennel manager at Sinkola Plantation in Thomasville, Georgia, and Curtis Brooks Sr., standing valiantly with his Pointer on the tailgate, ran the kennel at Tamathli Plantation, a few miles south in Quitman. President and Vice President of the Georgia-Florida Shooting Dog Handlers Club—sometimes called the Black Handlers Club—Neal and Curtis run dogs in the organization’s annual field trial, along with more than thirty other men bent on demonstrating their acquired skill and craft in front of a gallery of folks on horseback in the midst of elusive, wild bobwhite quail.