HATCHET’S FIRST HUNT isn’t going as planned.
Every trainer I consulted offered similar advice for our inaugural duck hunt: Set up with a good view for my young Lab. Take just one other hunter, one who won’t miss. Don’t hunt with other dogs. Keep it short—30 minutes, tops. Make sure he has fun. In other words, control everything you can because you can’t control the ducks.
Instead, Hatchet and I are anchoring a line of three shooters plus two guides in a thawing North Dakota cornfield. We’ve already whiffed on a few teal. The setup isn’t bad: We’re hiding in standing corn beside a seep peppered with full body and floating decoys. Hatchet’s been heeling in paw-sucking slop for nearly an hour, trying to keep his footing in the cold mud as he looks for the ducks he can hear but not see above the cornstalks.
The mild October weather plunged into the 20s last night, making this the coldest day my Southern pup has endured in his short life. I’d zipped on his neoprene vest as soon as we unloaded, but at a gangly eight months old, he hasn’t developed the fat and muscle he’ll add in adulthood. His teeth are chattering.
So I wrap my own jacket around his wet fur and pull the little Lab into my lap. It’s not like I’m shooting—that’s one rule for our first hunt I haven’t broken, at least. Handling Hatchet is more important than killing a couple ducks for myself.
I know this is a far cry from what most old-school waterfowlers imagine when they talk about the attributes of a great duck dog: hard-charging, tenacious, and uncompromisingly tough. But those traits come with drawbacks, and Hatchet was specifically bred to be free of the flaws that plague so many American retriever bloodlines. That introduces a fresh set of trade-offs. The doubt creeps in as we wait, and I wonder if my Lab will have the grit to make it as duck dog.
Someone down the line starts calling, and we both turn our attention back to the sky.