Browning BPS with a Chesapeake Bay Retriever.

There really isn't any other way.

Waterfowl or upland.

My first pheasant hunting was with a Lab and a Brittany. They worked well together. The first dogs my wife and I got were a Chocolate and a Brit. They hunted together for whatever. Couple stories from those two.

On one OD over at Moses Lake/Potholes I picked up almost a limit of Mallards and Pintails that were crips. That evening, out in some sagebrush, the two pointed. When the bird flushed there was a riot of color and a "quack". Pheasnats don't quack. It was a drake Mallard.

You have to use a retriever to hunt birds; they saved us so many times finding birds.

Two thumbs up for this pairing, and a “Way Up” if your BPS is the 22 inch 20 Gage Upland Special !

The safety is well located, good weight, and a nice quick English stock. Hell , it even has the proper length barrel for a great Grouse gun in the woods. If given a choice however, I’d probably have a look at the Remington 870 Upland special, again in 20 Gage. They just have the safety in the proper pump gun location, IMHO...


Add another thumb up if you don’t have to carry a short piece of 2x4 when hunting.

15 weeks old

^^
Awesome picture.

Fish on...

Todd

Agreed. First production year in 12-bore. Chessie was a blonde, 115#, big-headed brute that could easily carry around a basketball or softly hold a #2 pencil. He loved to field trial train and hunt. Pard and I would sit in a platform blind and converse. When the dog started to softly whine, there were always distant flocks to call to. Miss that big lug....

Nice pic.
Mine was Deadgrass and would launch just like that.
Lived to be almost 17.

I believe that bird hunting is simply an excuse to have a huntin' dog. They bring such joy, and heartache. Our first Chocolate, who was a great finder and retriever of ducks, was also well known for climbing apple trees as she loved to fetch and eat apples.

I should add that there is actually two closely related breeds that are generally covered by the name "Labrador". The true Labrador is rather easily identified as a highly trained, easily directed (hand/whistle) signals to find birds, its willingness to follow all commands, and so on.

The "hidde" breed is the Labbadork. It is most easily identified by looking into its eyes. One moment, there is deep wisdom. The next? You can see right out the earholes. "Dorks" are often seen in the front seat of vehicles, in chairs in the house, sleeping on the bed. They are also seen in the field where they may not always recognize their name, may not always follow your directions, but bring back the birds. Also, the Dorks we have had have been willing to die to protect their family; you don't want to be pissing one off by hurting their family, especially their children.

Great pic!

I like the “lab-dork” reference too! I’ve had 3 labs of my own since I was 13yo. All 3 have been priceless in their own way, and I can’t imagine going through life without one. Current one has always been a dork, but only cause we allowed her to just be a pet...she just turned 11 and so far (knock wood) she’s doing fine. The other 2 made it to 13.5 and 14.5, and both were hunted extremely hard. All 3 rank higher than most people I encounter on a daily basis...

Never had a lab. Instead, I grew up with Golden Redorkers. I've always felt that dogs are pretty much worthless unless they are doing what they were bred to do.

Our last Redorker loved to work the asparagus fields, tail a wagging like crazy when on a bird, and would be relentless in her pursuit until the bird flushed. The look on her face when you missed a bird was priceless. Once a bird was down, she would high tail right to the bird.....

...and here's where the Redorker lineage took hold. She would find the bird, sniff it a bit and either sit there and wait for someone to get that nasty dead thing away from here, or she'd lose interest in that dead thing and start finding the next living thing to flush.

Waterfowl hunting was great! She'd stay in the blind, wag her tail in earnest when the mallards came in close, and would bolt out in the water on command. As a damn near Olympic caliber swimmer, she'd race out and tangle up in, and drag with her at least 4 decoys and their strings/weights. Once at the fallen Mallard, she'd circle the bird making sure that it was dead, or it if wasn't dead yet, would contain the bird until the bird died of laughing. Once the bird was dead, she wanted nothing to do with it and would swim back to the blind, taking another 4-5 decoys with her and would get to the hunters, deposit her pile of decoys at her feet, shake off her fur and get everyone yet, and would turn around, sit down, and wait to do it all over again. In the meantime, whomever shot the duck(s) had the fine pleasure of getting to retrieve them any way they could.

I once hunted with one of my Dad's lawyer friends along the Walla Walla River on a icy cold January day. The guy as a bit of a scatter gun noob and pretty much at anything that was flushed or flew on that day. He managed to hit and dump a mallard right in the middle of the slow, meandering, cold as hell river (ice was in the river) river. Our Redorker was on that bird like lightening! SPLASH! In the freezing, ice filled river she went! What a good girl! She quickly found the dead duck, swam around it twice to determine it was dead, and swam back to me, shook off all the ice water off of her and on to me, sat down, looked up at me with those loveable Redorker eyes and silently said "DO THAT AGAIN! THAT WAS FUN!" As the dead mallard slowly floated away down river.

Oh hell no! No way was any self-respecting Weekend Warrior, West of the Mountains City Attorney let his one and only mallard (probably is first ever) get away. It was a nice sunny morning. Albeit about 15 degrees. He stripped down buck ass naked, got in the river, swam out and retrieved his own duck! Son, hold my shotgun and watch this!
a) I've never laughed so hard in my life.
b) I'm still slightly traumatized to this day.
c) I got good at *not* shooting birds over water unless there was
another dog there, or had a way to get them without getting
naked and wet.

As for a family dog, our Golden Redorker was top notch. This dog would play anything with us for hours on end. Her favorite past time was to roll a brick in to our pond, dive in to get it, stay submerged for minutes as she tried to get the brick, would pop to the surface (coughing and chocking) with the brick, haul it back up on the land, only to use her nose to roll the brick back down in to the pond. Rinse and repeat. She would follow us in to the bowels of Hell if we asked her too. She was ultimately killed by a car when my Mom took her for a walk. She lunged/went after another dog across the road and went and done got runned over.

As for her ability to defend her house.....

She was fiercely loyal and you'd best be on your toes if you came up and knocked on our door. First thing you'd hear is the barking. Barking that sounded like someone may be choking. Slightly muffled, but constant.

When the door opened, you'd get charged. Mostly you'd get charged and get a nose in your crotch and right in the balls. If the nose-to-balls maneuver didn't disable you, her Tail Wagging of Death normally finished things up. If all else failed, she'd just lean on you, in an attempt to knock you over and lick your face.

Else, you would be greeted at the door and get chatged with a Redorker that had no less than 3 tennis balls, 4 sets of underwear, and 8 socks in her mouth, all while viciously barking at you and wagging her tail at you in an attempt to break your legs.

Gotta love Golden Redorkers.

PS. Best Golden Lab I have never met was Bob's dog. Rainy. That was one loveable and kick ass lab.

His new one, Sunny, seems a bit flaky, OTOH, I only met her as a puppy and never did warm up to me.

We have one of each, the Golden Redorker and Chocolate Lab. Redorker has the same temperment as above, except just prefers to play the keep away game and in summary that just drives me nuts..

The lab on the other hand and in my personal opinion is actually a worthy dog. She will play fetch until her tongue is dragging. She just turned 1 and has quite the solid attitude, seems to only give a crap about retrieving as she's always dropping the bumper at your feet and gives you the stare. It's that stare only a lab can produce.. This year will be the first year over the decoys, will see how she does but I got a feeling she's gonna turn into a good duck dog.

Keith

"When the door opened, you'd get charged. Mostly you'd get charged and get a nose in your crotch and right in the balls."


Sounds like Todd's place.
Guys here speak highly of his roommates.

Our Brit was (generally) a great retriever and all around bird dog.

Once, she had ahold of a rooster by the tail. Got hime revved up, let him go, and my dad missed. He said she was rather pissed at him when she looked at him.

One time, she was retrieving a quail my Dad shot. She went out in the filed, got it, and set it down in the ditch halfway back to Dad. He had to go get it.

Hunting pheasants again, we dumped one in a creek in high flow. Susie jumped in, got the bird, and then got tangled in a willow. Was stuck, wouldn't/couldn't get out, was thrashing the water, so I waded in. When I got there, in belly deep water, she dropped the bird and swam to shore, leaving me to bring the bird in.

Gotta be smarter than the dog.

I've had a few Weimaraners that cam from good breeders, but I never got around to getting them out hunting. They were mostly just lazy cuddle rats. Super smart, though.

Great stories!

Parker, I have always enjoyed your write-ups; some classically funny chit man!

I have a "sharps old reliable" 45-70 military issue M1878. 90%

I have a remington falling block buffalo gun 45-70. 85%

Winchester 1895 30-40 craig military issue carbine.

Winchester model 94 35-35 1912.. re blued and 2nd stock.

Winchester model 50 .22 1920's