Some ducks showed up this weekend...Not much camera work going on, especially with hunt time temps in the single digits both mornings.
I got a couple pics of him with a pair of dippers at the end of Saturdays hunt.
This weekend presented him some new challenges, mainly the cold. Saturdays start temp was around 9 degrees. I shot a black duck, wood duck and bufflehead over him. Unfortunately he was not very enthusiastic about fetching the black duck or wood duck in the single digit temps, so I didn't push him to do it. He had no qualms later in the morning once the sun warmed us up about retrieving..
Sunday was even colder and we were going to be in the shade all day. 5 degrees at the launch, and not much warmer by the time the shooting was complete for the morning. He did fetch the first bird, a nice drake hoodie about 10 minutes into the hunt. He was an instant Popsicle once he got back in the boat. We actually needed to fire up the heater to melt the ice so we could dry him. We shot a bunch more birds in a hurry, and since everything was already covered in ice I opted to keep him in the boat rather than have him bring gallons of water with every retrieve. I handled the retrieving duties flawlessly.  Towards the end of our hunt I let him pick up 2 more dippers and chase a crippled black duck along the shoreline. He's got to toughen up a bit yet, but this is his first full season afterall. Our lab was no better with the cold at this stage in her life.
Overall not a bad weekend. It was a good learning experience for both of us.
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