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Revenge and First


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Rather than derail Flippermaj thread further I'll start this. So as i mentioned in his the foreshore Pinks are being really sneaky. So another very early start following a long drive Conor ( grandson ) his first pup ( fox red lab 7months old ) my two lab's made our way out onto a notorious hard marsh for geese but steeped in history.

Edging back on the rising tide my heart sank as the geese was well to our right trying to still feel positive i heard a single Pink call twice heading our way trying to calm Conor down he shouted here here looking up somehow 20-30 Pinks had sneaked right onto us praying hoping ( Conor had never even fired a shot at a goose on this marsh ) . Conor's first sent one slanting down but his second killed it due to this i nearly missed my chance but thankfully my shot found the mark. The joy excitement and relief is hard to explain as Conor went into excitement melt down as he watched his pup pick his first foreshore pink from this marsh. Three other local fowler's who saw the geese shot also congratulated Conor and his pup for me yet another proud moment logged into the memory bank. Sorry but club rules etc don't allow pictures or destination 👍

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A sight that will stay in Conor's memory bank for the rest of his days , watching his first dog bringing back his first goose , can't get much better than that .

I bought my first Lab pup when I was about 18 , I bought it as a eight week old pup in the Easter holiday and through out the Summer months I got him to sit and stay and picking up dummies , not knowing anything about training gundogs I then started getting him to go in water as that will be where he will be spending a lot of his time .

Everything went fairly well and he came with me from the start of that season , we both went through a training process , he was learning me and visa versa , all was going well on the duck retrieves but he did have a habit of running in which was my fault , this didn't worry me that much as he retrieved a lot of duck from the estuary and across the network of dykes on the marshes .

Then moving forward to around Christmas time the first skeins of Whitefronts started to arrive and most of the time I was doing my best to get one , on this day in question I was around three miles up the North side of the estuary when after a long wait a skein lifted off the marsh and started to make their way towards me while climbing up at the same time , when directly over me my nerves kicked in and my first shot was to far back , my second one was better but only hit the body area and broke it's middle wing joint , as it was coming down my dog was already running up the river wall and watching the goose hit the water about forty yards out , without giving it a thought he had jumped in the estuary and was going hell for leather towards the goose that was now swimming towards the channel , as it was to far to give it another shot I was praying my dog would be able to get it as there was no way I could call him back .

After what seemed like ages my dog had caught him up and grabbed it on it's side , when he turned around to come back the goose flapped his wing and it covered my dogs head , all I could see was a lot of splashing and no dog , this was when I got worried , the dog was in deep water and I honestly believed he would get drowned .

Then at long last I could see my pup was making headway back towards me , when he finally got back he carried this goose up the river wall , dropped it at my feet ( which was now dead ) and shook himself as if it was all in a days work .

This was about 55 years ago and I still think it was one of the finest retrieves any of my dogs have ever done , and my first dog taught me more about dogs than any book would ever do .

Sorry about rabbiting on a bit .   MM

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Thank you Marsh Gun . John Conor's pup has already retrieved probably 25+ Greylag to had does go until Conor asks him. Saturday evening i shot a Drake tufted duck which he retrieved faultless then a Greylag which had fell down a steep bank and rolled into a pit the young pup again surprised us as he brought it from the water up the bank to Conor's hand he also found and retrieved 3 other Grey's in the dark and to get the results he did this morning was the iceing on the cake. 

3 minutes ago, flippermaj said:

Good to see your posts again Boyd, always a good read!

Thank you Mark 👍

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2 hours ago, m greeny said:

Always look forward to your reports boyd.. It sounds like Connor is turning into a very experienced fowler already.. Great stuff and keep up the good work 

Thank you. He certainly has got the Bug and with his first pup he experiencing loads of first fingers crossed plenty more to come 👍

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