Gunner was whining as he stood in the water just off the bank of the rather large farm pond. "Go fetch", I commanded in a hoarse demanding whisper. I was trying to reload. "What is the matter with this dog?", was going through my mind. In a matter of just a few minutes we had 5 ducks down! It was legal shooting time, but still dark and dreary from the gray clouds that produced the annoying light mist.
Gunner is an unusual yellow Lab. He has some quirks to say the least. For example, we put new flooring in our kitchen 5 years ago. He still hasn't gotten used to it. He travels through our kitchen from one strategically placed rug to another. My wife has provided him with "stepping stones" through the kitchen that have sticky backing so they won't slip. (He may be a bit spoiled.) We noticed at Ken's house, who owns his grandfather, that he would back out of the kitchen. He would actually turn around so he could back out! My buddy Randy calls him "Psycho". I can't argue. He is a bit odd about some things, but he is quite the hunter!
Well here "Psycho" stands on the bank as I watched a small flock of mallards circle, only to exit, stage left. "Gunner, fetch the BIRD!" At that point he was out of the water on the bank's edge. He bellowed out a noise that I can only describe as sounding like "Chewy" from Star Wars. Immediately following his utterance, as if Tarzan himself, he leaped into the pond with a crash! He followed the crash with dog paddle strokes lifting his front paws up too high! It was at that point that I realized that he was breaking ice! There was no ice where we put the decoys, except perhaps 10 inches from the bank. However, where we were hiding, which was slightly down wind, it was frozen 35 yards out. Perhaps because the water was shallower there, or because the spring fed the pond where the dekes were, or both I am not sure. I do know that the ice was nearly an inch thick where he was and none at the spread! I can only imagine what Gunner must have been thinking, "Really Dad? Have you lost your mind? I can't walk on it or swim through it!"
Finally, his desire to retrieve birds overcame his frozen obstacle, and he was off! Upon his return, he couldn't find the same path so he had to churn his way back to shore. After a short rest he was right back after it. It was a short retrieve. After that I took him to the open water for the remainder of the birds. We shot three more birds that day. Gunner seemed quite pleased that they all landed on shore! My yellow companion retrieved 7 birds that day.
For the first time, on my season log entries, I am keeping track of the number of Gunner's retrieves. He had retrieved 107 birds to that date. I don't have any season-long data to compare it to other than that of one bird hunter friend of mine. He had a goal for his dog to get 50 retrieves for the season. In perspective, his was not the only dog he hunted with and Gunner usually is the only retriever. The idea to log retrieves came to me when I was in Kansas last year. My buddy, Randy, said he wanted to take Hunter along so he could get some retrieves. He said that he would like to see the old boy get about a dozen retrieves. Matt and I were good with that, so we did what we could to accommodate him. When multiple birds were in the water, we would send Gunner after the further ones, and help get the lovable Black Lab in and out of the boat. By the end of the trip, Gunner had accumulated 73 retrieves and Hunter had 13. The other birds on our 6 day hunt were cripples that dropped way out, or birds that dove on the dogs and we had to chase them down. There weren't many of those, but you have some when you're shooting that many ducks and geese. There was one occasion that we dropped 6 ducks out of a flock, and while we waited for father and son to retrieve 5 of feathered prey, number 6 swam so far out that we could not see him in the slightly choppy water. So we pushed the boat off and set to find it. By the time we found the beautiful drake red head he was not healthy at all. We didn't want to shoot him on the water because he was a taxidermy quality bird. As we approached, we decided to use my landing net to scoop him up. Hunter had other ideas! He jumped out of the boat and grabbed that duck! Ordinarily that would not be surprising, but throughout his life Ol' Hunter has been very apprehensive about exiting a boat! As in, I have watched Randy roll him out! Matt and I had to laugh! The only thing we could figure is that he was tired of watching Gunner get all the fun, and decided to beat him to the punch! In any event, for me, watching the dogs work is all part of the enjoyable experience.
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