retrievers

[waggle]

ok so i wanna here the best retrieve your dog has done on a duck/goose hunt

mine... a buddy and i were hunting and came upon some ducks...they jumped early but we still had a decent shot. i shot once and dropped two birds, they both hit the water and begun to swim, fast! so my dog swam out after them and somehow lost them. after appx 7 mins of straight swimming around he spotted them about 100 yards offshore and brought both birds back in one retrieve. one canvasback, and one coot...dunno why it was mixed in but hey! a double retrieve where he swam a total of about 250 yards?! i was really impressed.

[waggle]

no one....................????

[Threemuch]

I will play. I just got my dog, and we haven't hunted yet, so I will brag up my buddy CD's dog, Jasmine. She was definitely my inspiration for getting a gundog of my own. Hunting over a good dog is at least triple the fun of hunting without one.

These three are all last season. She impresses me almost every trip, maybe because I am pretty inexperienced, but this dog is pretty cool.

1. We shoot a triple of wigeon, and one sails maybe a half mile and over a dike. The dog doesn't come close to marking it, so I take her over there (she doesn't handle.) I try to get her to work the area, but she wants to go down the dike another 250 yards or so. I keep calling her back, getting frustrated. About the fourth time, she comes back, holding the bird. Lesson? Listen to the dog, she knows what she is doing, and has been at it about 4 years longer than you.

2. We shoot a pair of BIG honkers, and one is crippled. Like the seasoned vet she is, she is after the crip first and wrestles it to the ground on the far bank of the small pond we are hunting. She is swimming back and the bird is beating on her pretty good. He is covering her eyes and she is swimming in circles. We call to her, but she can't hear us over the sound of a giant wing bouncing off her head. She is forced to let go to get her bearings and the battle is renewed. She gets the bird in the same position, and he does the same thing. This happens three times as she crosses the pond. When she gets to the beach, she steps on that gooses neck and liberates his head from his body. Lesson? Don't mess with Jazzy, she is a tough b!tch.

3. It's cold. Everything is frozen, and Jazzy has been shivering a bunch. It's late in the season and she is getting a little worn out. So CD breaks down and gets her a neoprene vest. She seems to like it. First time out with the new gear, we busted a nice piece of open water out of the ice and a pair of mallards sail in just past shooting time. We drop the drake, but he sails into the middle of a 50 yard patch of blackberries. Jazzy is in there in a flash, crashing around until a few minutes later, she emerges with the prize. But the vest is shredded. One retrieve, and the vest was pretty much done in. Lesson? Jazzy is WAY tougher than 1/4" of Neoprene.

Did I mention I really like this little black dog? I hope Lucy can some day measure up. That's CD on the left, Mike in the middle, Jazzy on the right.

Here is one of her pretending that 35 retrieves in a day is just like any other day:

And Jazzy with her man, having fun in the swamp.

[billc_sbio]

O.k., I'll bite. In fact I have 2 really GREAT Retrieves for you.

One was from this gal



This was Brandy Duckfinder and she was probably the most fantastic Lab that I'll ever have owned. She just had the most incredible nose and was probably even more valuable at upland hunting than she was for waterfowl. She just knew when there was a Pheasant anywhere nearby and would seek them out and flush them no matter what.

I was hunting with her out on Aaron Unit one time on Rentenar Point. A group of Mallards came in and I dropped 2. One was close by (and obvious) and the other hit the water on the edge of the decoys and immediately started swimming.

I sent her and she had marked the dead bird and picked it up and brought it right back to me. I'd tried swatting the swimmer but it was getting away anyway. I lined Brandy up on the swimming Duck and sent her after it. It had about a 100 yard headstart on her but she was after it across open water. The Greenhead swam across that part of Sturgeon Lake and over into Malarky Unit and finally disappeared into some semi submerged tree roots on the edge of the bank. I could barely make out Brandy as she got over there. After about 5 min. of swimming around, checking all those tree roots she dove into one and came out a few seconds later with something in her mouth. She swam back toward me from the distance...took her about 5 min. to make the swim.

When she got back she had this in her mouth. It was that same Greenhead and it was banded. Not only was it banded it had a $100 Reward band on it too! That was one reward that would have gotten away IF for not for a fantastic dog making an outstanding retrieve.

Then, super-retrieve #2 was from my next Lab, Dancer, who's now retired.

Dancer didn't have as good a nose as Brandy (no dog I've ever seen has), but she had just as much heart.

We were hunting right by this place but the water wasn't this high and we weren't using the boat that day.

A Honker came over the trees low and I took a shot at it. It was hit but didn't fold up. It flew off, low over the trees and crossed not only over the pond we were on but across another wide flooded slough and another treeline. It went farther than 200 yards away gliding and then suddenly folded up. Dancer was marking it the entire time. But when it folded it dropped behind the treeline that was close to us, even I couldn't really mark the location it went down or exactly how far away it was.

Dancer just kept looking at me like, "Are you going to send me or not?". Finally I sent her, not really expecting anything. That would be a truly remarkable retrieve crossing a couple of treelines and fairly wide water areas.

She disappeared into the first treeline and then she was gone. She was gone for about 10 min. and I started to worry about her. There wasn't anything I could do because I couldn't get to the area she went without taking a round about trip that would probably take 20 min. walking, one way. I got on the whistle, just trying to call her back. Nothing!

Finally, after about another 5 min. here she comes, emerging out of the treeline, dead Honker in mouth as she jumped back into the pond and headed straight for me.

THAT probably was the most incredible blind retrieve that I've ever seen.