dogdoc Posted December 17, 2005 Report Share Posted December 17, 2005 After a slow first season today opened up with a boom. Right at first shooting light I had 4 groups of mallards working the decoys. It was a very dark early morning with the heavy cloud cover and I'm in the process training a new dog so I didn't want to shoot birds she can't mark. We had a few land right in the decoys--should have shot a couple of those but we just worked on marks. When light finally arrived we had a great morning. This was my labs 3rd hunt. The first two were a little disappointing as we were just not seeing many birds. I had a blast working the lab. Just this week we started playing "baseball" with the piles. Working of left and right backs and left and right overs. My first duck down was a mallard hen and she made a great mark. Sent her for the duck and she got to go after her first injured duck. What a hoot. (Remember this is my first lab so everything is fun to me right now). Anyway whe gets about 2 feet from the duck and it goes under and so did my dog the bird ended up coming back up about 10 feet to my right of her. She didn't see it come up so I thought what the heck. Blew the whistle to get her attention--did a right over and lo and hehold the dog followed the command--saw the duck and went right to it--the duck went down again but came up right in front of her and she grabbed it--wings flapping and one really excited pup. Toot toot toot on the whistle and she was on her way with the duck. A perfect retrieve as she brought it to me---healed, held the duck until the release command was given. The next duck a few minutes later was was a woodie. She didn't see the duck go down as she was actually marked on a different duck (hasn't learned yet to follow the barrel)--so this is her first true blind retrieve without throwing a rock to make a splash. I lined her up with what I THOUGHT was the bird and sent her on the mark with "back"----she then started after the furthest decoy--about half way I whistles and she turned to me and then sent her on a "right back"--she did it perfect but what I sent her to was a blob of feathers and not the duck. I then notice the duck is about 10 yards to her right. I whistle--give her a "right over" and again she followed the command--saw the duck immediately and again did a perfect return to heal and release. We ended up with a few more greenheads that landed on land so she actually got to a little dead bird also. No pics as it started to rain pretty heavy at the end and didn't want to get the digital wet The only bad part of the day is while putting out the decoys I realized I had a rip in the left boot of my waders--very cold foot for the day A great day for both of us! todd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carbonhunter Posted December 18, 2005 Report Share Posted December 18, 2005 Re: Fun day today.... Bet the wet foot didnt bother you till the end though..............awsome todd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lil hunter Posted December 18, 2005 Report Share Posted December 18, 2005 Re: Fun day today.... Glad you had a nice morning. I had to bust a 1/4" of ice this mornin to put out the dekes. I get back to land finally, and i'm talkin to my dad about the hundreds of crows flyin over, when i spot a mallard comin in. I say" theres a duck" as it is already cupped and coming in. This was the only open spot on the lake, which is a few acres. It made another pass and we shot 3 times and missed. We sat there for another 3 hours, and I don't think we saw a total of 20 ducks this morning. It was very dissapointing. Oh well, we know theres thousands of crows out there, and we know where they'll be headed in the mornin, so we're gonna try our luck at them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huntn4bucks Posted December 18, 2005 Report Share Posted December 18, 2005 Re: Fun day today.... Sounds like a great hunt Todd. There's nothing like seeing a young hunting dog develop. Sounds like you have her on the right track to being a great waterfowler. Nice job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Covehnter Posted December 19, 2005 Report Share Posted December 19, 2005 Re: Fun day today.... Sounds like a morning that'll be remembered for a long while! Congrats on the birds and the success with the dog as well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTF Posted December 19, 2005 Report Share Posted December 19, 2005 Re: Fun day today.... Good deal . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
double_drop Posted December 20, 2005 Report Share Posted December 20, 2005 Re: Fun day today.... sounds like a good day hunting alot better than my day of working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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