Well now that our waterfowl season is over up here, I wanted to take a look back at the progression of our little "project"  

The last weekend of April "Addi" the BLF was ready to come home from Maine, my 11 year old daughter and I skipped youth turkey weekend and made the 14 hour round trip.  We kind of forgot how much work and effort goes into having a puppy around, as our last chocolate is now 10.....but it quickly came back to us.

First days home



Not quite sure what to make of this



A few weeks later, getting a little bigger






Later on in the summer a little socialization with all the people at one of my daughter's horse shows



An artsy fartsy shot after doing some water work




We sent her away for 5 weeks near the end of summer to a friend who is a pro trainer.  He FF and CC her along with finishing up on her obedience.

Most of September is our early goose season, we put her right in the mix making easy retrieves on water, which she took to right away.  You have to remember that she is now 7 months old and might be 40 pounds dripping wet, water was easy but she had a little trouble on land retrieves........getting her mouth around the big honkers and short legs didnt help  

First of 3 September bands for her



Nice shoot with a couple of friends



She ended up with about 60 retrieves in the early goose season.  The last weekend of Sept. was our youth waterfowl weekend, it was slow because of the warm weather and all the high water but we made the best of it.

My daughter






October moved into our regular duck season and opening day



I went to Sasketchewan for a week and came back to a open goose season and went out with my daughter after school one day, first snow for both of them.



Now here is a progression of pictures from the rest of the season.  You will see many are in kind of the same pose as she runs off the back deck of my boat, and likes to stand up and look around when things are slow, giving me a perfect opportunity to snap a few pictures.

First duck band (she picked up 4 banded mallards total)





Another band



And finished.  She did a great job this fall, a little timid of the real cold water the last week or so.......but I can't blame her, she is still only about 47 pounds without an ounce of fat on her.  A definite fun work in progress.  

Cool! Thanks for the field report. Going out in the morning with a buddy. Send em this way!

Knocking the shit out of them the last week or so and getting very icy.

A little chilly I would say, it was 3* at start shoot this morning





All done for the morning

Duck season ends tomorrow, but today was Addi's last day (her buddy Sage the Chessie is going in the morning) her last 2 retrieves of the season were both banded drake mallards!  Nice end to 2016.   



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Happy 6th birthday little girl. 



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Just hanging out after the monster snow storm


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What state do you hunt? That's a ton of bands. We don't get near that many in Texas. 

We are in western VT and eastern NY, there is a very strong banding program in the Atlantic flyway.  There are a lot more birds banded percentage wise than the other flyways.

My holy grail from last season, even though Addi did not retrieve it (Sage the Chessie did) a $100 reward band that was put on 8 years ago 200 miles north of Quebec City.


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Thank alot Photofuckit for messing 6 years worth of stuff up.  I have all the pictures saved in different places, but is going to take a pile of time to get things changed out and fixed.  Nice to be able to post straight from my phone and they will stay, like the last few.    


Well I got the first post back up and running 


Finally finished    I think I only lost 2 pictures in the whole thread and now I feel like this.........

Can still see most on this page anyway.

ETA first two pages are fubar, sorry.

And on the eve of season 7, she has to bring her corn man toy outside 

packing the truck for the morning, she knows what is happening

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25 birds in the boat/blind over the long weekend, watching the one that landed long and got a free pass


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I finally decided that I'd been without a duck dog for too long and pulled the trigger, as it were. Meet Cutter, just shy of 4 months old in this pic.

Nice! Enjoy, you have a lot of work in front of you

Little miss piggy on a field hunt Sunday 


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Awesome OP!!!

Don't you know it! Still dealing with the occasional pee in the house, working on sit and leash familiarization. Also steadiness at meal time. Millions of miles to go! I can only hope that this one trains as well as the last one.

Duck/goose season is on, not real happy about a little down time.  Off to Saskatchewan in the morning !!!


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Just got back from SK last night and will post up some pictures of the trip.  Lots of birds around and lots of retrieves, the white geese had a fantastic hatch and made for some great shoots.





Dust storm in the background

Sweet! I was there for the first 2 weeks of October and now I am ruined for life. So many birds and all of them dumb as rocks! We were in the Livelong/Turtle Lake area. Where did you go?

It is a hell of a playground, that's for sure.  We are a couple of hours south of where you were, without giving out specific locations 

A little bit of work on the lake this morning, the drive is unreal!


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Being able to own a duck dog is one of the coolest things! It's a lot of work but it's so awesome to watch a dog do what they were breed to do. I have a 4.5 year old black lab that if it was up to him he would never quite retrieving. If anyone is considering getting a duck dog take a look at this article. The articlegoes over some great points of having a duck dog and the training required to make a great dog.

Article: https://thewaterfowlhunter.com/waterfowl-hunting-dogs/

A little chilly this morning, instant ice coming out of the water and we still have 45 days left in the season 


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We're in our split closed season which doesn't open back up until the 22nd. And Murphy's Law holds true - tons of birds in the area.

Working our way to a mallard limit this morning and the last picture was the only 2 birds in the boat yesterday  

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I was gone for a while. Glad to see this thread still going.

Was wondering where you went, welcome back!

A couple of weeks left in the season and getting cold, put the boat in at -5* yesterday.  Funny picture from this morning, sun was on her right side and melted the ice, left side still there.....look at her eyelashes  



And I finally got a mallard that we have been hunting since close to the end of last season, we had not seen it until Thursday and got him today.  Snow white drake mallard, curl feathers included, no toe clips or markers indicating a tame bird.  

The drive on retrievers is amazing, even when covered in icicles.

Ho hum Dad, just another banded mallard, stop taking my picture

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Just trying out the new camera my wife got me for Christmas.  A lot more advanced than the simple point and shoot/IPhone I am used to.  Merry Christmas everyone!

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Merry Christmas!

Finally venturing outside as it has really not been above zero for the last week, -25 when we woke up this morning, 15* now and I think I am going to put on a pair of shorts    She lost her tennis ball in the front yard and kept rooting around for it like a pig.

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Good shots. I had a retriever once that lived to root through the snow face first. Happy New Year!

Happy 7th birthday little girl

Happy Birthday Addi from Central Vermont.

Time flies. Happy Birthday Addi!

Seven is right in the prime time, pro bowl phase.  That is quite an awesome puppy you have there.  Glad you are enjoying her the way you are.

What kind of camera are you using for those shot's?  My current lab is yellow but my previous lab was black.  Every shot I ever took of her she just came out like a big black blob.  I couldn't get the highlights and details like you have in a lot of your shots.

Granted it was 8 years ago that I lost her so the point and shoot camera's of that era are probably eclipsed by a high end camera phone of today.

New camera is a Panasonic FZ 70, still a "point and shoot" but has a nice lense and features, more than I will ever use.  Most of the hunting shots are just from my Iphone and cleaned up a bit on it.

Thanks so much for showing off your fuzzy buddy.  I enjoyed this thread.

Thanks so much for showing off your fuzzy buddies. I enjoyed this thread.

Dad, I love birds but this is way too much    He was trying to sneak thru the back yard, hot tub makes great cover!

Nice beard on that bird!

Yup!  it is 10", 1" spurs but only weighed 18 pounds.  He was the dominate bird in the area, but it was funny he has been hanging with another big tom since march, which my buddy shot Sunday morning.  It was 23# with an 11" beard but only 3/4" spurs, they were both standing together and I shot the "biggest" one from watching them both for 3 months.

Here they are in better times, mine is in back, heavy 6 is closer

Taking pictures for our daughters senior prom and someone has to bring a stick into it........

Nice shot. She has quite a bandanna collection.

Yup! the girls keep her "updated"  I should start a thread on our horse....he has a lot of stuff  

So I got to take my 1 yr old lab to a couple of HRC training days here in NH and he did great! First time he'd ever even seen a duck and he had about a millisecond pause like "What the heck is that!", fetched it up and came charging back. He's a little rough around the edges but I think he could do "Started" without a problem.

Working daily on heel, sit, stay, here, holding til released for a retrieve and casting. Started whistle sit and he's got that (except he sorta thinks it means heel and sit). About to start working on force fetch, which I've never taught before so I'm a little nervous.

Going to have a hunting buddy this fall for the first time in a couple years.