Gun Dog Forum

other than "leave the gun at home", which is great advice, any tips for me on opening day of duck season this coming weekend with my 1 year old GSP female's 1st hunt?

I sure am looking forward to it!

Know your ducks and which are in season. Hard to tell in the air unless you studied their flight pics.

Wind at your back and good concealment. If your dog isn't a reliable retriever, make sure you have some means to retrieve what you shoot.

I never let my dog retrieve birds (break or sent) that are killed dead, they are not going anywhere. What until you shoot a cripple then cut her loose she will learn that she is not suppose to go on every bird that is shot and she will become much more steady in addition she will swim right pass the dead ones for that cripple which is the bird most likely to be lost. When you have a break in the action send her for the dead ones once in a while (especially when her behavior is good in the blind or where ever it is that you set up).

1. Don't get arse wet
2. leave the CALL at home
3. leave the DOG at home if you have to constantly train him while out nobody wants to listen to you train your dog in the marsh
4. make sure dog is steady, you don't want a dog breaking and running under your feet in a duck blind with a loaded gun in hand
5. set up with the wind in your face
6. make the kill hole off to the side a bit of your blind so the ducks aren't looking directly at you when they are looking over the landing area
7. scout and scout some more, be where the ducks want to be
8. don't be that guy who gets there at sunrise and is trudging through the marsh at legal shooting time
9. don't set up down wind of other hunters
10. if another blind is working ducks stay off your duck call and let them work the birds until they either shoot them or the birds start working your decoys
11. don't call at ducks coming at you.
12. call the tail feathers and wing tips. meaning when you can see tail feathers and wing tips call at them
13. don't look up at the ducks
14. don't call ducks while they are overhead
15. concealment is everything, be hid and don't move and don't let your dog move
16. don't set you blind on fire, sounds dumb but I've seen it happen
17. leave off the face paint. Get a turky hunting mask. leave the face paint for duck commander and his duck dynasty family

Just a few suggestions.

I appreciate all the replies. I should have clarified my question. I'm an avid duck hunter, just curious if anyone learned anything profound on their dog's first duck hunt which I might use to my advantage on my 1 year old GSP's 1st duck hunt this coming weekend. I took her on a dove hunt, but she only made 2 retrieves so that wasn't much in the way of training. We're through forced fetch, & she's doing well at throwing marks if I can hold her attention or keep her interest. She's real birdy so I think once she realizes what we're doing, she'll be fine.

Sharon, I definitely know my silhouettes

Switch, It is nice to have the wind at your back & the ducks locked up on the decoys flying in. Also, I'm unsure if she's a reliable retriever yet, this will be her first duck hunt.

Cajun, that's the kind info I'm looking for right there. On this 1st hunt, I'll be focusing on her steadiness. Any retrieving work we accomplish will simply be a bonus.

For reference, I don't hunt flooded timber or corn fields, etc where the birds typically fall on land or in still water. I hunt rivers, some of which have a 6' tide stage and a very swift current. Leaving a dead bird in the river can actually lead to a lost bird as it will travel quite fast in the currents where I hunt.

My bad.

It's all about the dog on its first few hunts. Leave the gun at home and be the full time dog handler. Don't worry about shooting birds yourself. Send him after every bird shot each time and those that are crippled make sure you finish them off before sending him. He will eventually learn how to handle cripples on his own.

I have never allowed the entire blind to open up on the dogs first few times out. Quite a difference in shooting one gun over a dog and an entire battery of magnum shells out of 12ga shotguns going off over it in a duck blind.

Duckn, it's amazing how many people have no clue about the common courtesy you've outlined. One morning, this guy came through our decoys in his boat @ 10 minutes to legal shooting time. I had a good mind to fire a warning shot across the bow of his boat (obviously I don't like jail, so I refrained). Another morning, about 30 minutes after legal shooting time the game warden pulls up in our decoys to check us. This is on a dead end creek, with only one exit. He could clearly hear we were back there shooting. Wait for us to come out? Give us the 1st hour of daylight to kill a couple birds? Nope, he decided to ruin our hunt. As we're back there being checked, I was shooting birds over his head 1/2 the birds were flaring away as they saw his white boat. I even sky busted at a few of them out of spite for this inconsiderate game warden. I guess I should be thankful he gave us 30 minutes, but otherwise in my experience, the game wardens have been much more considerate giving us til like 8:30 or 9am at least

also great advice duckn, I'm hunting public land so we won't be in a blind, or hunting from the boat. we stand on the bank using natural cover about 20-30yds apart from each other. dog will be at my side, & I will be bringing my gun against the advice of pretty much everyone who knows what they're talking about I did mention this in the OP, I'm stubborn & I like shooting, but hey it worked on the 1st dove hunt, so I'm gonna go with it!

Keep the advice & criticism coming

When the duck is down, the dog may not mark it properly if at all. The dead ducks will look like everything else in the water. So if your dog is not trained with hand signals to get it down wind of the dead duck, carry a few rocks to toss at the duck when your dog is looking in that direction.

thx Ruff, I've seen my buddies actually do that. Hoping I won't have to resort to it, but I'm willing to try anything, I appreciate the tip

Knowing your dog is only 1, here are some thoughts:

1. place the dog a little behind you and your partner. Dog will see the bird fall more and you will not shoot close to the dog.
2. Do not have more than one shooter.
3. Bring a tie out. Your dog will have a tendency to want to move a lot, and having the dog on a tie out will eliminate handler corrections. The dog will learn to stay still when ducks are working.

The main thing that most 'first timer' duck hunters learn is that their OBedience training was inadequate.
If the water is COLD, be prepared for some 'no-goes'.

Del Lolo wrote:The main thing that most 'first timer' duck hunters learn is that their OBedience training was inadequate.
If the water is COLD, be prepared for some 'no-goes'.

Not knowing how the OP trained his dog during the past summer, meaning water exposure and its behavior with said environment, there are other factors that come into play before obedience can be addressed.

At this age, I tend to think "no goes" happen from a lack of prey drive in the animal and exposure to water itself in the off season. My 1 1/2 GSP was leaping in water that had outside temperatures near or below freezing. Everytime a bird went down, and she was cued to retrieve, she jumped in. The knucklehead would go swimming when we started to pick up decoys.

All she did before that was retrieving crippled birds, dead birds, and feathered bumpers in the summer months in the water. Her last duck hunt was a couple of weeks ago in Northeast Wisconsin and there was ice forming on the water from overnight.

thanks Del, I have a 5mm vest for her & fingers crossed on the obedience thing. E-collar can make her listen in a bind, but she's very obedient without it. Birds & gunfire can definitely throw all that out the window though. I'm expecting no-goes & other challenges. Looking forward to them actually

Miller, good info, I did plan on bringing a tie out. I'll tie her up behind me hopefully giving her a better view & some distance from the gunfire noise. She's always been pretty good at fetching from water, FF cured her refusal to fetch from land. Before FF, she'd run after a land retrieve but wouldn't pick it up (not anymore!). I've often directed her to water retrieves at the dog park using hand signals or rock splashes. We recently started throwing marks so she's starting to put the bigger picture together, but she's so young & inexperienced I have no high hopes. We'll have fun with it no matter what.

Her prey drive is 2nd to no dog I've ever seen, I saw her catch a live squirrel in my neighbor's yard, she brought it to me just as proud as could be. She chased a heron (big white bird) off the beach & ran up & down the beach chasing it as it flew, she was in & out of the water for about 45 minutes solid sprinting after that bird just this past weekend. She was pointing at it about 50 yds away, & I told her she could have at 'em, one of the happiest moments of her life I think, haha. We've never once worked on "whoah", as she was chasing that bird, I tried it, and I'll be "bleep" if she didn't freeze into a point. I was so proud, mostly luck I'm sure, but it was really neat to see. Anytime a bird flies by, or even a bug, she's 100% locked on, I've fostered that drive as much as I could ever since I got her @ 8 weeks old.

any other comments will be appreciated

I've recently started duck hunting my gsp. Hes a year and a half old. Best two pieces of advice I recieved is put the dog where it can CLEARLY see the birds fall. Make it fun for the dog. Don't do much shooting yourself. Don't shoot coots. And let the dog work for a cripple. He grabbed the dead birds for us, but seeing his excitement as he tore off after a cripple cemented his desire to duck hunt. Its a good feeling seeing your dog shoot out of a blind for its first time and grab you a duck.


Have fun.

thanks Blue

If I have a cripple bird flapping around in the water, I shoot it again. Are you saying let it flounder around & send the dog after it instead?

chevyrulz wrote:thanks Blue

If I have a cripple bird flapping around in the water, I shoot it again. Are you saying let it flounder around & send the dog after it instead?

That is exactly right let it flounder and send the dog!!!!

10-4

northern cajun wrote:

chevyrulz wrote:thanks Blue

If I have a cripple bird flapping around in the water, I shoot it again. Are you saying let it flounder around & send the dog after it instead?

That is exactly right let it flounder and send the dog!!!!

-Agree completely. Let it chase a cripple, it will do more for building drive than a dozen dead bird retrieves. That dog will be so fired up chasing a cripple in the water. The instincts will show.

she did great in my opinion, she was not loving the cold or the gunfire, but she took it like a champ. I think she was overwhelmed / confused since we've never gone out on the boat in the middle of the night to stand in the marsh & shoot guns before. I couldn't get her to fetch at all, she wouldn't even let me put the duck in her mouth after I fetched it myself. I took her out to a dead bird in the water, she wouldn't jump in, which is no surprise, she hates jumping out of the boat into water. I put her in the water, she swam over to it, then back to me to put her back in the boat. I'm going to keep bringing her with me to hang out on hunts, & keep up the fetch training, eventually it'll click for her

Wear boots.

Dont "Sky bust" meaning dont shoot at ducks if they are 75 yards out or up (Everybody hates that guy there is one in every corwd)
Get there early........ Mr. sky buster is the same guy that sounds like a 1000 man army walking through the swamp at shooting light
If you are hunting in a public place with high volume of other hunters dont hunt right on top of someone else
BUT THE NUMBER ONE TIP ANYONE CAN GIVE is have fun and learn thats what its all about
Good luck Have fun Be safe

Dog tips are what I'm after. Sorry, I should have made that clear in the OP. I'll try to change the title & OP to specify that it's the dog's 1st hunt, not mine, & that I am a novice handler seeking pro tips about dog handling, not about hunting itself.

She made me proud again on Saturday, I took a buddy with me, and his dog was running around, whining, & just generally not being anywhere near as good as mine.


There's no excuse for skybusting other than stupidity and/or ignorance. Steel shot ain't cheap, and every missed shot teaches the birds to fly higher which only makes them that much more wary next time. I'm not one of them, but there's plenty of rubberheads out there who'll run through your decoys 10 minutes before shooting time because they slept late. Worse yet, there's even more out there who'll shoot 3x at ducks 100+ yards away or those who constantly blow their duck call sounding nothing like a duck. If someone is in my hole on the river, I will setup a couple hundred yards down & across the bank so I can hopefully have a chance at birds they miss, and so hopefully any birds I miss will run towards them be shot. If you can hear the shots landing anywhere near you, or if you can hear the other group talking, you're way too close unless you know them or got their consent.

boots? I wear chest waders

As suggested, take a tether next time, it cuts down on the need to correct her, which will confuse some. You may have to FF her.

The leash came in handy on the 1st couple hunts, but she listens well & didn't need it once she figured out what I wanted her to do. She sat by me still in the marsh even on the 2nd hunt without a tether, & her good behavior continued on the next few hunts in spite of the distractions from my buddy's out of control dog.

We've been through FF by following a program outlined in Chris Aiken's "Duck Dog Basics" DVD.

A properly FF'ed dog is not going to refuse a retrieve under any circumstances. They may not bring back the duck, but they will go when sent and return with something.

You need to redo FF.

Tie her up OUTSIDE the blind so she can see everything happening. Then she'll understand duck hunting. A dog youtside a blind doesn't flare birds as long as they sit or lie still, or fairly still. I never use a blind with mine, just lay her alongside the blind.

Important thing is that a young, inexperienced dog see everthing.

You can have a ton of fun with GSPs and waterfowl. Just make it's fun and she will get the hang of it.

My pup isn't FF yet, she got two geese from the water then wouldn't go after the thrid. We tried rocks with no luck, I just sat down with her next to the water. After a few min she walked into the water to get the goose! One of the best moments with her so far. If they have fun they will want to get the birds!

Here she is at 6 months old with two of them.

Agree with the dog outside the blind. Made that mistake my first time with my dog, he ran out when sent but didn't have a clue where the bird fell. Next hunt had him next to the blind, he watched the ducks come in, shot em, and never have had a problem since.

Neil wrote: You need to redo FF.

I agree. I have a lot of training still to go. She's young, & very inexperienced. I'm going to let her get it in her own good time

She had a great view on each hunt. I appreciate all the replies & info!

chevyrulz wrote:

Neil wrote: You need to redo FF.

I agree. I have a lot of training still to go. She's young, & very inexperienced. I'm going to let her get it in her own good time

She had a great view on each hunt. I appreciate all the replies & info!

I don't think you have to redo ff, what you have to do if you want her to go for an unseen bird is to continue ff and force her back on a pile, then run confidence blinds.

It's a misconception that a ff'd dog will go somewhere when commanded to "fetch". What they may do is panic and spin in a cirlce. Then you've created a "spinner" and you've got some real problems. FF is a very orderly process; I would advise the Smart Fetch regimen.

gonehuntin' wrote:force her back on a pile, then run confidence blinds.

force her back on a pile? I am thinking this means to have her fetch several bumpers from the same spot?

confidence blinds? I am unsure what this means, but I guess it would be building her confidence by having her fetch blind retrieves?

I started over on FF, and I discovered she's not reliable on the word fetch. So I am going to go back through FF very methodically making sure not to advance until she's a pro @ each step. The other day I had to force her to put a big duck in her mouth. As birdy as she is, I was surprised. She's very quick to take anything small & feathery, she's always watching the sky, and she often chases birds. I think her hesitance to take the big dug was because she didn't have confidence she could hold something larger & heavier than she was used to holding. The only birds she's ever had in her mouth are doves & teal (a small duck). I handed her a big fat corn fed wood duck from this past weekend's hunt, & the only way I could get her to hold it was to put the neck in her mouth. She was real curious, sniffing & licking it when it was in the boat, & in the driveway. I had to hold her mouth open & put it in, & hold her mouth on it a couple seconds commanding "hold" before she'd actually hang on to it at first. She carried it around the house a few laps holding it by the neck though once she realized I wasn't going to give up. When I go back through FF, I'm going to teach "hold" & "fetch" all over again using more than just a paint roller & a dowel. I'm going to make her hold ducks, & logs & anything else that I can find that will fit in her mouth to make sure she knows she's perfectly capably of picking up a big ole Canadian goose if I ask her to

then on to walking fetch, & throwing marks. I'd love to get more free info on the pile & blind thing mentioned above if that wouldn't be asking too much, thanks again everyone

It is a fairly involved thing (nothing you can't easily learn!) and my best advice would be to blue the Smart Fetch program from Evan Graham. It is money well spent. Then, if there's parts you don't understand, ask Evan or come back here for advice.

You know, I never believed in forcing a dog hard on birds. I would try yo make if fun, throwing the duck short distances, letting her break, just having fun. I hate to have a dog equate birds with pressure. For the rest of the dog's life it will make it's living retrieving birds, so it darn well better like it and think it fun!!

My GSP does not take the cold very well. She lives in the house, so I am very conscious of keeping her warm. I'm not sure what part of the USA you live... I live in the Pacific Northwest. I'll blind hunt my GSP to temps that are about freezing but recover above freezing during the day. Our last hunt was at 16f and I did not bring her. Even so, I always bring a marsh stand so she does not have to stand in water, and a polyurethane mat- to keep her off the ground. She will lose the most heat from the ground or water. Also bring plenty of snacks to keep her well fueled.

The river you describe as 6ft tide and swift current is problematic for the GSPs. They have no tail for a rudder. I've hunted my GSP on back cuts on a big river but would be very reluctant to hunt her on the big water during a strong tide. But I'm sure you know what your dog can or can't handle.

My GSP is not excited about duck hunting, but still likes to come along. She consistently makes retrieves... and has the excellent GSP nose for blind retrieves. You're welcome to PM me if you have specific Qs on how we trained her. She is not FFd

^^^Can you tell me about the mat you use, please? I'd like to get one for our dog.

Gone, I appreciate the recommendation. I wasn't real overbearing on forcing her to take & hold the duck last weekend. Great advice on keeping it fun. The more fun I can make it for her, the more she seems to learn, and the more willing she seems to be.

Molly, I am very cognizant of the risks with dogs, especially shorthaired dogs, and cold temperatures. Thank you for the tips about feet & food, and I might just take you up on the offer about training questions! As far as the current goes, I'd never send her on a retrieve into the middle of the big river with a swift current unless I was ready to get in the boat & go after her. The temps here very rarely stay, or even get into, the teens or 20s. 30s around here is very cold. My pup shivers when it's 65 though sometimes lol

Rooster, I am unsure what exactly Molly is using, but this $30 Avery truck floor mat may be similar: http://www.amazon.com/Avery-Universal-F ... =marsh+mat