Do you guys try to hide your dog?

John Robinson

John Robinson

Well-known member
Hi everyone,

I hope everybody had a good Christmas hunt. Our duck hunting season ground to a halt about two weeks ago when the Flathead River froze up solid. Hopefully things will thaw in the next week or so, but I think most of our birds have left the area.

One of the things I like so much about this forum is reading reports of hunting, conditions, species and style of hunting form all across the Country, North to South and East to west. My question is, do you try to hide your retriever in the blid, or do you let him sit outside for better marking?

I hunt with Golden Retrievers and position them on the bow of the boat, out in the open, or if hunting from shore, to the side of the blind. This doesn't seem to bother the ducks up here in NW Montana. Now my dogs, like some shades of Yellow Lab and Chessies, are fairly camoflauged. But my friends who hunt with black dogs say the ducks don't pay any attention to any dog sitting out in the open nest to the decoys. I like the dog to sit still and pay attention, but I've even had young dogs moving around and the ducks come right into the decoys.

How about you hunters down south, where I presume the birds are warier, having flown the gauntlet from the far North to wherever you hunt, do ducks flair off your dogs? If so, do you keep the dog in the blind with you? I know when I have done that, I have a lot more blind retrieves.
 
Like most things, it depends. If the ducks are doing right, it makes no difference whatsoever. If the ducks are looking for a reason not to belive, a dog can flair ducks left and right. animal movement and people movement seem to me to be 2 different things... often a dog moving in the decoys will attract ducks from great distances, and I've never seen a bird shy from a dog swiming at any distance. In running water or dry land, a dog in the decoys will flair birds... birds around here that arent scared of dog looking things wont last long with the coyotes we have.

In my pit one of the dog boxes is covered with a top, the other (my side) isnt. Occasionally I'll put some cover over the very top of my dog to break up his outline, depending on the dog espeically (the ones that move more or are short nuff they stand up all hunt especially). But i dont know if a duck has ever flaired from just the dog... moreso I think a duck becoming aware of the dog there makes them aware of the pit, and us. Like I said, if they want to belive, they will. travis
 
John,

I am all new to the dog thing , my retreiver is 2 years old and has retrieved a total of 6 ducks in the time i have had her , as well as flushing 4 pheasant , anyway in my cackler i built a platform so she can sit on the motor well . In this postion she is exposed to the birds , i have not yet had a bird flare because of her , in fact i use her as a spotter. If you watch your dogs face they pickup everything that moves so for that reason i prefer to have her outside of the blind . Good luck


Dave
 
We use some vegetation / camo to break up the outline of the platform and hide some movement. That being said, the dog doesn't have much room to move anyway.
On our pits, we built 2' X 2' platforms and put a little brush around the sides and back.... not so much the dog can't see. At my blind-on-the-slough, the platform is on the side, allowing the dog to see pretty much anything out front. We're not really trying to hide the dog, just hide the platform. I figure blending the blind into the surroundings is the best course of action.
 
Back when my partner had a dog (Yeller Lab named Daisy), we never made an attempt to hide her. She sat on the bow of the boat in the open or stuck her head out through the split in the blind.
She was a good spotter too, always seemed to know which way to be looking and sometimes spotted birds before we did. She was one heck of a dog, never had any formal training, she just knew what to do. I sure miss her.
 
I know what you mean about the dog spotting ducks before you do, I've got a funny story that happened about eight years ago with my red dog Cody.

I was hunting with two friends on the Lower Flathead River in December. The river was down about 4'-5' and we set up along side a fairly large island. We had a pretty good morning shoot, just a few mallards short of our limit, but I was sleepy so I decided to take a little nap. I decided to take shelter in a dry trough through the end of the island that had been carved out during spring run-off. I had Cody by my side as I dozed off. Sometime later out of a deep sleep, I woke up to far off barking. We were about 30 yards from the decoys and apparently Cody had sat by my sleeping side and watched as a flight of mallards lit in the decoys, his whining wasn't enough to wake me and he couldn't take it anymore so he charged down the shore barking, thats when I woke up.

Well they flushed and flew right over me and I was able to get one shot off out my stupor, dropping a green head in the water on the other side of the island, which Cody promptly retrieved. My buddies were at the other end of the island and saw the whole thing. True story.
 
We have a opening in the blind where the dog can see and leave the blind. My partner always worries about the ducks flaring from the dog. My uncle had a spot where his dog Blacky would always sit on a muskrat house, in the open and exposed. A smart dog didn't have as far to go to retrieve ducks. Blacky would retrieve the duck to the blind and then go back to the muskrat house. Some times people who hunted with my uncle would get upset "That dog will flair the ducks" My uncle didn't think so.
 
WISPETE,

From my experience I think your uncle is right. I would think the proof is in the pudding, if the dog is exposed and the ducks don't flair then it isn't a problem. I was mainly wondering if the ducks at the south end of various flyways are more wary of dogs sitting out in the open then up here where there are more naive.

Beginning when I was 15 in 1965, I grew up hunting the Salton Sea which is not far from the Mexican border in California. Ducks that have survived that far are very wary and wise to hunters, decoys, duck calling, blinds, ect. I started duck hunting in Montana an 1987 and moved here in 1991. I noticed immediately that ducks up here, particularly early in the season, are not near as wise as those southern ducks.
 
Absolutely. Years ago we could let the dog sit outside of the blind and limit out. Those days are long gone. I think that mostly because the species of ducks in our area have changed. Mottled ducks have been making up a larger percentage of the bag, and they're local. Now I have the dog completely hidden; she's in dense camo on all four sides and also above. All her retrieves are blinds. Actually, she's too old to retrieve at all anymore; she's retired. She's not missing anything this season: there are almost no ducks at all.

Ed.
 
Cant tell you how many ducks we have taken with the dog swimmin in the decoys ove rthe years. Murphy was a swimmer huntin dog with A.D.D and it showed but I really think the ducks thought of that BLACK thing as a large beavah or something cause it seemed to work for us. Gordy had had ducks droped on him while on a retrieve last season also. He doesnt have murphys will to just swim for 2-5 hours but I dont think they hurt much. that being said If the dog is a lil rambunctious you better have him hid. Never seen to many beavahs on a sugar high bouncin around the marsh.

***Disclaimer thats a BLACK dog you know REAL LABS! lol just kiddin folks......
 
Never hide my dog. She is a chocolate lab and when I hunt in fields she lays down beside the blind and when hunting water she is either on shore in view ready to mark the birds or on the bow of the boat.
 
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