I guess we're hard to figure. We seem so success-oriented. We buy the best equipment we can afford, sometimes even better. We practice wing-shooting year around. We train our dogs, or have them trained, beyond all reasonable needs. And yet, many of our fondest memories are of our gaffes and our dog's gaffes. Initially, they may embarrass us, but as they slip into the past, we begin to cherish them. I'll share a few of mine with you, and I'll bet you'll begin recalling a few of your own.

The countless hours spent side-by-side will be remembered most.

The Wrong Duck
When my two now 40-something sons, Bob and Pat, were teenagers, we frequently hunted ducks at Cheyenne Bottoms, near Great Bend, Kansas. This is a sprawling shallow marsh with many large millet patches scattered about. The State has built mounds with pit blinds all over, at 300 yard intervals. When you check in, you can request a particular blind, and if it isn't already taken, you get to use it. To reach it, you have to wade 300, 600, or 900 yards from the road on the dike.

Once when Bob, Pat, and I were hunting there, I shot a gadwall that fell into a millet patch. I sent my golden, Duffy, after it. After he entered the millet, I could no longer see him, but I could follow his movements by watching the millet move. He explored the entire patch several times and was gone a very long time. Finally, the millet's movement indicated he was heading straight back toward me. When he emerged, he presented me with a cold, stiff duck that had been dead at least two weeks. It was so water-soaked that he must have gone underwater and found it on the bottom.

As I took this duck, Duffy looked up at me as if to say, "Sorry, but this is the best I could do! That other duck vanished."

All three of us laughed almost to the point of tears. At length, I patted Duffy on the head and said, "Good boy!" After all, I had shot a duck and he had retrieved a duck. Besides, who could fault his ingenuity?

The Hard Way
Another time at Cheyenne Bottoms, I saw a very amusing incident involving four hunters who had only one pair of waders. To get from the road on the dike to their blind they had to wade 300 yards. So, after a few coin-flips, one man donned the waders and carried another man (and some gear) piggy-back to the blind. Once there, he gave the waders to the man he had carried, who donned them and waded back to the dike. From there he carried another man (and some gear) piggy-back to the blind. There, he took off the waders, and gave them to his "passenger," who waded back to the dike, and so forth until all four of them and all their gear were at the blind.