Dogs and Cripples

We had a hen mallard drop into thick rice a week or so ago. We thought she was stone dead and marked the landing spot well, but she must have been able to walk. Three of us and the dog combed the rice for 20 minutes, then again after the tide had dropped before we left and never saw a trace of her.

Two days later at the same spot the dog returned with a hen mallard while we were setting decoys. We're guessing the tide finally pushed her out of the rice and left her closer to the blind, but who knows? Or maybe it was someone else's lost cripple.

We always count lost birds against out limit--but it still galls me to lose one.
 
What a great looking dog--all stars use a little makeup and photoshopping before they go on the cover! Good stories too--though I noticed a snarky remark about Labs not finding birds. Not worth arguing over. Harry found so many ducks on his own he should have had his own duck stamp. And there was no muskrat hole too deep for Summer to winkle out a winged widgeon. My only two Labs, each a paragon. And I have hunted with some marvelous Labs who owned other hunters: Linc, Rusty and his litter mate, Magnum, Hoss, the incomparable Duke. A Hoover vacuum would have been no more effective. I'm glad you have a mild-manner Chessie--unlike that guide who had to tow his Chessie behind in a separate boat because he was so cranky. He took his "soldier's pay" in gobbled-up ducks before he started bringing them in...
 
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It is not your computer... I did some post processing to give it the look of a painting.
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Unlike a LAB,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Kodi needs primped in his photos. ;>);>) (actually I too liked the effect on the photos.)
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Over the course of a season my Chessie will usually pick up a limit and a half of his own of crippled and "lost" birds. Last year he got a goose that had been butt-shot and was holed up in the thick cattails, surprised the crap out of us both! Also last year we got a prime drake canvasback that another group had fired a hail mary at and never bothered to follow up on, from our spot a few hundred yards away we could see the bird go into the death glide and land a few hundred yards between them. Although it was a mounting-quality bird I didn't take any joy in picking that bird up. I thought about taking it back to them but decided that they didn't deserve it. One of my favorite things about having a good dog is having the assurance that you will very likely pick up any cripple you have, usually way more than enough to offset the very few that you might still lose.

I'm still hurting over a nice drake wood duck (a rare bird around here) that we lost on the opener, 3 guys and a dog searched for 45 minutes but we were never able to recover him. However we did pick up a wounded mallard that another group had lost, so it was a nice bittersweet feeling!
 
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Yesterday's hunt was a good example of why dogs are so important. Flushed a pair of Woodies out of a back water by the creek. Shot at the drake through some tree branches like a grouse shot and saw him splash in the water. Dog ran to the mark and headed into the grass away from the mark. Came out with a hen cripple! He then ran back and picked up the drake. I only shot once and had no idea the hen got hit. Good Boy!
He got a treat on the way home, John
 
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