With plenty of time to spare, Lou and I headed out to the point and put out of spread of decoys. This point is a great spot on a decent sized body of water. As Mocha and I had seen last year, this was a great diver passing loop, as well as a great passing shot spot for geese. I put out the duck dekes, and spread out the goose shells as best as possible and waited for shooting light. It was amazing to me to see what birds would make their way through. The coot and the ruddys were driving Lou absolutely ape-shit, and though I vowed to not shoot anymore ruddy-ducks, (I would rather eat once used silage) I popped the first one that came into the spread. On the board and the dog was happy. I was watching all of the divers blast through and could not bring myself to shoot because of the number of greenwing teal on the water, and I couldn't positively ID all of them. From the right I had a low group come ripping through at mach-5.
Canvasbacks!!!
In one fluid motion I shouldered my gun and led the only drake in the tight flying group.
BOOM!
Two birds dropped out of the flock as the rest disperse. I stoned the drake, and an errant pellet found its perfect mark on a hen. Lou made a flawless retrieve on both birds and we were showing our progress in great strides. As we were between lulls, a group of rockets again came in from the right, this time they were buffleheads. I picked out a drake that was the most separated from the flock to avoid another double, and dropped him on outskirts of my set. He immediately dove, and I expected this to be an odyssey.
When he popped back up I was at the ready and swatted him on the water. Lou made another flawless retrieve and dropped it on the pile with the rest of the birds. Dang these little birds are pretty!
As we lay waiting for more birds to find there way over, I heard honking from behind me. I quickly swapped out shells just as they were in front of me.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
My first shot connected and my second stoned one, my third, as usual was a swing and miss.
Lou was halfway out when she realized they were geese. She commenced her whine/barking swim before retreating to shore. I was able to wade out and retrieve my bonus honkers!
Not long after the goose shooting, a trio of high flying mallards decided to give our setup a buzz, and I pulled up and emptied my gun. I knew I hit the drake on the second shot but he just kept on flying out into the lake. About 200-300 yards out he stopped my fight and dropped from the sky. With a bone crushing splash he was down. There was no possible way I could get Lou to retrieve it that far so we waited for the wind to do half of the work for us.
While we waited an errant teal ripped through our spread and I made a terrible shot. As Lou swam out towards it. I tried swatting it with a few shots with no success. I knew this was going to test her fortitude. 150 yards out it finally dives. The worst part is Lou had it in her mouth but dropped it when it kicked back. That was all she wrote. I had to pull her off of the bird and have her make her way back.
As is usually the case it is always the last of anything that is the hardest to acquire. Last fish of a limit, last duck, last drops of a milkshake. Well, this last bird took almost 2 hours. When a group finally flew over, I sailed it over the spread and into the water. I thought it was a good hit but when it started swimming I knew we were back at it again. Two swatting attempts did nothing and Lou was closing fast. This one did the exact same thing as the teal. Dive, swim, dive, repeat. Lou couldn't make up ground on the dives. Again, I had to pull her off of it. When she returned, I let her catch her breath, and then sent her out on a successful retrieve. That mallard from earlier was finally close enough for a retrieve and I knew Lou had just had two long bombers so I knew she was learning to look beyond her usual field of view. When she finally caught view of it, out she went. For a dog in great shape, an easy water 150 yard retrieve was a cake-walk; especially when its actually dead like they are suppose to be.
After this retrieve I decided it was time to call it a day. We had a remarkable hunt, and even though we were one duck away from our limit (with the teal going towards our bonus birds) it was time to go home and get some food.
Lou continues to make progress as expected and each hunt she gets better and better. I will continue to work with her on retrieving geese though. By the end of the season, I will make it happen!
Stay Tuned
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