Went out this morning and set up on the beach. Tide was high and going out with the wind in my face, no other choices. I put out nine duck and three goose decoys, one of each was a wing spinner. A couple minutes into shooting time I glance at the decoys, crap two are bunched up... oh wait, it's a teal next to them. Too dark to shoot really, she takes off as another flies past.
One teal flies by, boom, boom, keeps going but looks like it lands in the marshy flat down the beach, plan to look for it later with the pup. Another teal comes by boom, boom, down it goes, pup is still sitting by me (yeah), send off to fetch, brings her first "real" bird in. I did have to remind her to come a few times though.
A bit later, another teal lands in the decoys at 12 yards, after some arm waving, body shifting and a handfull of gravel she decides to leave. Straight away shot, miss one, down with the second. She is a long way out and the pup did not see it go down. I send her out but cannot throw a rock far enough to show her where it is, need to work on hand signals more. Some mallards fly over, miss them.
Get the dog and drive over to the dock to get my dinghy to try to retrieve the swimming teal. Have to bail out many gallons of water from yesterday's rains first, ugh. Motor to where I last saw the teal swimming, I see a bird and head towards it, should I shut the engine off and shoot it? I'll just try to catch it. At fifteen yards it flies away, what??
At least it could fly I guess.
Headed home to get more shells and back to the beach. Moved the decoys out with the tide, it is definitely nice having them on a gang line. Sat for a bit, missed a crow, how the heck?
Sit, sit, sit... hen mallard! Swing boom, flop, good retrieve by the pup but just on the beach. A while later had a drake mallard fly up the beach, swing, boom, splash, she still only had to wade a little bit, no swimming. Man, I sure do better when I don't have time to think about it.
Time to go, it's a little after nine. The only goose I heard was, of course, when I went out to get the dinghy. Drop the dekes and birds at the truck, OK time to go look for that first teal. It's a big area to search. Tell her to find the bird, she loves running around in the grass. Realize I should have tossed the teal behind us so she would have something to "find". We walked several hundred yards and shortly after we turned back up the beach I see wings in the grass, she is on it, and bam, fetches it to me. COOL!
A good day and no rain to boot.
Hope you like the story.
