New Year's Day seems fitting for milestones and renewed beginnings . The sun rose slowly and remained obscurely in gloom. An flock of green-wings flying low to the water skirted the decoys, never checking up. For about an hour, several thousand snow geese paraded overhead and well out of shotgun range, and as their ululating cries faded we were left with only the deafening silence of wind sweeping across the bleak Grand Prairie. The hunt was perfectly slow paced for gathering thoughts between whispered visits with son Duncan, who just the day before had garnered his first double with a pair of green-wings.
By mid-morning a drake mallard and teal on my side, and a handsome shoveler on his, were all we had to show. An errant flock of teal shot into the decoys, erupted straight up into starburst formation and retreated with 5 fewer among their count, adding greatly to the morning's effort. By the time talks of late-lunch pancakes back at camp had turned real serious, we had 5 ducks each. Two ducks shy.
Duncan was 2 and his brother, Forrest, 4 when we made the drive to West Point, Mississippi. When the crate opened, 5 black balls of black lab bounded out. Engulfing the boys, licking their laughing faces and tugging their jackets it was hard to tell one pup from another but we finally agreed on the female that was soon sleeping in their laps, as they too slept, during the hours-long ride home. We named her Delta, which is short for God's Country.
She retrieved a season-high during her third year, our second season in L'Anguille Lounge Duck Club. We members were mad at snow geese back then, well before everyone else and their brother had an axe to grind with conservation season geese, and saved the tundra one truck load at a time. We even took it to fleet level. She accumulated nearly a thousand birds that season. Like several other L'Anguille labs, those big flat shoots developed bold confidence in handling nearly a quarter-mile distant, at times, across muddy soybeans field in the recovery of snows and blues.
There hangs on the wall a surf scoter in tribute to our hunting the expansive, sea duck-rich Pamlico Sound following a main-feature tundra swan hunt. The scoter had skipped across the water on the shotgun report, but righted itself as Delta approached and paddled away with her in tow. Old enough to know better but too young for that much duck at the tip of her wet nose, Delta refused the whistle and gave chase. I remember a small black dot that was my beloved Delta disappearing on the horizon, wondering just how far that fool dog would swim before turning back, and just how far it was across that damned sound if she didn't. She returned nearly a half-hour later with a still-kicking skunk head seized between her jaws. Ignoring praises, she climbed onto the bow and resumed the hunt.
Duncan pointed excitedly as he reached for his gun, and I jumped up just in time to sweep a drake ringed-neck from the tail end of a flock strafing the decoys. Duncan banged to the plug and as the flock departed, we watched one break ranks and ascend in slow motion before hitting the water 3 levees over with a visible splash. Delta quickly recovered the mark. From the first rice levee she took a line. Topping the second levee she trotted east. I'd have whistled, but haven't carried one for 2 years. She's deaf as a deadbolt. When she stopped and squared up, likes she's always done since I quit whistling, a right back steered her charging over the third levee into a nose full of scent. Her tail told the story. She swam tight circles over the diving duck until finally coming up with a mouth full of squirming feathers. Just another day at the office, she soon handed over career retrieve Number 5,000.
While mostly ducks and geese from 4 Canadian provinces and 3 US flyways, her 9-year tally includes doves, snipe, sand hill cranes, a few ruffed grouse, pheasants and quail. Not included is the bowfin she fetched up that July afternoon we hand-seeded Alligator Slough's knee deep muck to jap millet. She seemed as proud of that retrieve as any other.
After lunch, Duncan, Patrick and I drove over to Chris Aiken's Webfooted Kennels. At the first chance, she seized the wing of a snow goose, but soon focused her attentions entirely on a puppy-sized teal. She's got a lot of ground to cover if she's ever going to replace Delta, but hopefully will have plenty of opportunities. We named her Shine.
Ramsey Russell's GetDucks.com
By mid-morning a drake mallard and teal on my side, and a handsome shoveler on his, were all we had to show. An errant flock of teal shot into the decoys, erupted straight up into starburst formation and retreated with 5 fewer among their count, adding greatly to the morning's effort. By the time talks of late-lunch pancakes back at camp had turned real serious, we had 5 ducks each. Two ducks shy.
Duncan was 2 and his brother, Forrest, 4 when we made the drive to West Point, Mississippi. When the crate opened, 5 black balls of black lab bounded out. Engulfing the boys, licking their laughing faces and tugging their jackets it was hard to tell one pup from another but we finally agreed on the female that was soon sleeping in their laps, as they too slept, during the hours-long ride home. We named her Delta, which is short for God's Country.
She retrieved a season-high during her third year, our second season in L'Anguille Lounge Duck Club. We members were mad at snow geese back then, well before everyone else and their brother had an axe to grind with conservation season geese, and saved the tundra one truck load at a time. We even took it to fleet level. She accumulated nearly a thousand birds that season. Like several other L'Anguille labs, those big flat shoots developed bold confidence in handling nearly a quarter-mile distant, at times, across muddy soybeans field in the recovery of snows and blues.
There hangs on the wall a surf scoter in tribute to our hunting the expansive, sea duck-rich Pamlico Sound following a main-feature tundra swan hunt. The scoter had skipped across the water on the shotgun report, but righted itself as Delta approached and paddled away with her in tow. Old enough to know better but too young for that much duck at the tip of her wet nose, Delta refused the whistle and gave chase. I remember a small black dot that was my beloved Delta disappearing on the horizon, wondering just how far that fool dog would swim before turning back, and just how far it was across that damned sound if she didn't. She returned nearly a half-hour later with a still-kicking skunk head seized between her jaws. Ignoring praises, she climbed onto the bow and resumed the hunt.
Duncan pointed excitedly as he reached for his gun, and I jumped up just in time to sweep a drake ringed-neck from the tail end of a flock strafing the decoys. Duncan banged to the plug and as the flock departed, we watched one break ranks and ascend in slow motion before hitting the water 3 levees over with a visible splash. Delta quickly recovered the mark. From the first rice levee she took a line. Topping the second levee she trotted east. I'd have whistled, but haven't carried one for 2 years. She's deaf as a deadbolt. When she stopped and squared up, likes she's always done since I quit whistling, a right back steered her charging over the third levee into a nose full of scent. Her tail told the story. She swam tight circles over the diving duck until finally coming up with a mouth full of squirming feathers. Just another day at the office, she soon handed over career retrieve Number 5,000.
After lunch, Duncan, Patrick and I drove over to Chris Aiken's Webfooted Kennels. At the first chance, she seized the wing of a snow goose, but soon focused her attentions entirely on a puppy-sized teal. She's got a lot of ground to cover if she's ever going to replace Delta, but hopefully will have plenty of opportunities. We named her Shine.
Ramsey Russell's GetDucks.com
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