Same Old Same Old II

Pic by Jordan LaRue

Pic by Jordan LaRue

Pic by Jordan LaRue

Pic by Jordan LaRue

Yep, the duck hunting is still good as long as the temps are down and clouds come...

Cutter made the top 10 list for retrieves yesterday. We've been setting up in the mouth of the channel above Bernie the Billionaire's. On the other side of the island, there's a deep bank that bends across a cliff wall and then eddies out right in front of Bernie's dock. Some people call it the "Million Dollar Hole." It's a huge eddy that collects all the dead bugs drifting down-stream and thus, the fish stack up like chord wood in the summer. (Those of you who have fished this stretch know what I'm talking about...)

Anyway, we dropped a duck that glidded to the other side of the island from where we were set up. It made it to the seem that dumps into the Million Dollar Hole. I brought Cutter over there thinking there wasn't a chance in hell he would be able to retrieve that duck. When we got over there, the duck was stone dead drifting out in the middle of the eddy and slowly making it down-stream. The eddy is a good 125 yards across from the tip of the island where we were standing.

I pointed Cutter in the right direction and commanded, "Fetch it up!" He gingerly stepped out on the thin ice forming at the tail of the island and went through. He scrambled to get back on the ice. I sent him again and again he fell through the ice, which was obviously freaking him out. I brought him to the side of the island with less ice and a shallow shelf so he could walk out and feel the bottom without crashing through and sent him again. Now the duck was almost all the way to the other side of the eddy.

Cutter took a b-line to that duck, grabbed it and started heading back. I was completely amazed. He never saw the duck come down. I don't think he really saw it until he got within 40 yards or so but he knew it was there and trusted that he was doing the right thing.

The current coming back was a little tough, especially with a full-grown green head in his mouth so he cut across the channel about 200 yards down-stream from where we were set up. With duck in mouth, he ran the entire bank back to the blind. He was running with it head high; proud as hell and deservingly so and then dropped it on the beach waiting for me to cross the channel and pick it up. I couldn't praise him enough. Good boy Cutter.

Keep 'em where they live...