I'm 73 years old, and have been bird hunting since I was a teenager. Over the years I have trained a Chessie, a Springer, a Large Munsterlander, a Picardy Spaniel, a Blue Picardy spaniel, another Springer, a Lab, and my current Springer. The Munsterlander and Picardies were pointers, which I saw as useless. Maybe that's my prejudice more than a firm opinion. I train my dogs to work close and kick the birds up where I can shoot at them, then bring them back. The Chessie was by far the best waterfowl retriever, with two of the springers right behind. The Lab was lazy, and one of the springers was worthless. It's fortunate the Munsterlander was a pointer, because keeping him within 200 yards was a trick.
By far my favorite combo house pet and field dog are the springers. Two of them have been fabulous retrievers. My first one never missed a retrieve on land or water in her whole life, the one I have now has a similar record, but she is only seven. You really can't hunt upland in Western Oregon without a dog, because of the brush cover. You lose almost all of the cripples.
I live in the country on 90 acres, which has no game birds because, y'know, bird dogs. They think their job is to flush them, so the birds live at the neighbor's.
