Originally Posted by
JonMBailey
1. Should the new wing shooter first learn field ducks or start with the uplands?
2. My grandfather once told me that the rice-field ducks are the best eating and that marsh and bay ducks taste fishy, especially the divers.
3. Field duck hunting might be most akin to the upland disciplines as far as web-footed feathered game goes. I am not sure if the rice-field duck hunters use pits or blinds.
4. I also want versatile black (my favorite color) Labs trained for any feathered game I go after. I will have to learn to master the dog handling skill as well as the shooting, calling, and decoy skills. I figure a Lab trained for the uplands might do equally well in the rice fields for Mallard quackers.
5. Will my Labs for upland work have to be trained to point and hold birds?
1. Either or, both are generally so different that neither are applicable to each other in shooting style or anything else. There are some exceptions however.
2. Your grandfather was wrong no offense intended. Puddle ducks feed both on aquatic vegetation and on grain. Just because you shoot a mallard in a marsh does not mean he was not in the rice fields. Actually around here the marshes, lakes, rivers, ect are more used as places to loaf and sleep than feeding grounds. The ducks move from water sources to fields to feed. Now divers are different they do only feed on aquatic vegetation but they do not taste fishy because they do not eat fish. Though Mergansers eat only fish and most people do not eat them due to their fishy taste.
3. In your case field duck hunting has ABSOLUTLY no similarities to upland hunting. In my case the only similarity is that I am hunting in a corn or wheat field. Field hunters use both pit blind, layout blinds, other types of blinds, and no blinds at all.
4. The reverse is true you want to first train your dog for waterfowl work before moving onto upland work. Since you will run into issue with getting the dog to sit still if he was trained for upland work first. I would recommend
Water Dog and
Game Dog by Richard A. Wolters for waterfowl and upland work respectively. They are classics and are still used after 50+ years for a reason they work.
5. No, it is impossible to train a dog to point and though it is possible to teach a dog to hold birds but with a flusher what is the point? You a trying to circumvent the dog's instinct to flush game which could fail at anytime and is the whole problem is solved by keeping the dog within shotgun range. Now there are breed that pause before flushing game but they don't hold birds or point.