This is another reprint from the Hunting Stories page


Paul,

I'm a first-time Chessie owner that has yet to develop a real affinity
for the breed. But I'm getting there. I saw the banner on the "Team
Chesapeake" web site indicating that you were interested in Chessie hunting stories. I have one for you, but--pardon the long Email--I need to give you a little background information first on how it is that I came to own a Chesapeake.

My husband, Tom, and I are longtime Alaskans and longtime Alaska waterfowlers. For over twenty years, we've bred and hunted Labrador Retrievers. About six years ago, I had an opportunity to spend a few weeks in Texas training dogs with Dave Mosher. While there, I met Dual CH AFC Westwind's Rudy of Nordais. As Dave says, Rudy's "a very special animal." I was smitten. But I wasn't interested in owning a Chessie.
However, Tom and I had a very dear friend and longtime Chessie man that was returning to Alaska after three years away. We bought our friend a
Rudy pup as a homecoming gift, a bitch that is a littermate to Bertram's Blazing Firewater.

Our friend bred his Rudy bitch to a stud he chose from Seattle, a bench champion and master hunter sired by Dual CH Gambler's Dilwyn-Stacked
Deck. He called Tom and I after the breeding and informed us that he wanted us to have pick of the litter as a gift. We didn't say no. We didn't think about it. I guess you'd say we became Chessie owners by default.

When I got our Chessie pup, a bitch, I knew she was something special, but I had no real frame of reference. I had no idea that Chessies were
not usually so outgoing, tractable and trainable, nor so fast, stylish and "hot." She seemed like a very talented field-bred Lab pup to me. I
named her "Halcyon" for the mythical bird that has the power to calm stormy waters in winter. I thought it was a good name for a dog we
intended to use as a sea duck and goose dog.

I did a really poor job of training Hallie for the first year of her life. I never gave her enough time. Things were really hectic at work
and I was traveling a lot. When she was eleven months old, I called my friend and professional dog trainer, Patti Kiernan, for help. I told
Patti I had a dazzling prospect for her, a talented little bitch with an impressive pedigree and a water entry that she had to see to believe.
"There's only one thing you might not like about her," I said, "she's a Chessie." There was dead silence on the other end of the phone line.
Finally, with a big sigh, Patti said, "Ann, why are you wasting your time and money." I convinced Patti to at least look at her, and I flew
with Hal down to Oregon the following weekend. Patti had reservations, but she liked what she saw. And, more importantly, Hal liked Patti.

Patti has done a tremendous job training Hallie given that she started with a pretty raw recruit, and she is now one of Hal's biggest fans. She
was running her in derbies six months after she got her, and she says Hal really ran well in the derbies in which she was entered, although
she always went out in the third or fourth series for long hunts. But Patti says she never failed to find and pick up her birds, which told me
a lot about Hal's perseverance. She took a third in the last derby she ran before Patti sent her home to me.

Despite her promise, I wasn't sure I wanted to keep Hallie. She really loved the trial work and was showing a lot of promise given her late
start, but all Tom and I needed was a hunting dog, and, to be honest, we still weren't thrilled about owning a Chessie. THEN we went to Seldovia,
Alaska the weekend before Thanksgiving. Seldovia is a small fishing village accessible only by boat or plane on the southern coast of Alaska
where Cook Inlet enters the North Pacific. Our friend to whom we gave Hal's mother is a fisheries biologist who runs a consulting business out of his home in Seldovia. He had invited us down to hunt ducks in Seldovia Bay.

We arrived in Seldovia late on a Friday night just before a major North Pacific storm blew in. The next morning when we went down to the
Seldovia boat harbor, the wind was blowing at about 40 knots. By the time we got across Seldovia Bay to a small saltwater lagoon on the other side, it had picked up to nearly 60 knots. It was awesome! We couldn't turn into the wind very long because of the pain of the sleet stinging our skin. The waves rolling onto the beach on the outside of the lagoon were at least 15 feet high, and the air was thick with sea spray.

We walked along the beach to a pocket of water next to the beach berm that separates the lagoon from lower Cook Inlet. Meanwhile, another
party of hunters had gone to the head of Seldovia Bay. That's about when it started raining mallards. The hunters who'd gone to the head of the bay must have flushed about two or three hundred birds out of the wetlands at the head of the bay. The birds came across the top of the
ridge above us--just black specks on the horizon--and then started dropping into our corner of the lagoon in a howling head wind. Tom and I
sat on the beach and shot at birds that seemed to be suspended above us as they tried to land on the water in front of us. As soon as we fired,
the birds would just tip a wing and zing off over the open ocean in the roaring wind, swing up above the ridge and begin their descent again We
bagged our limits in less than two hours.

Little Hallie was incredible! Absolutely undaunted by the wind and waves! At one point, I sent her on a nearly 200-yard retrieve out into
the lagoon in that vicious wind. Waves were breaking over her head and the wind was blowing her down the lagoon. At about 150 yards out, she
looked like she started losing her courage a little. Then she caught scent of the bird, which wasn't drifting as fast as she was. She turned
INTO that wind and just churned toward the bird. I had tears in my eyes. It was something to see!

So, we have a Chessie! She's a keeper! I took her back down to Patti the week before Christmas. (It's pretty much impossible to train retrievers
in Alaska in the dead of winter when you're working fulltime. There is so little daylight here. I end up just running a lot of drills in
lighted parking lots.) Patti's going to get Hal ready to run Qualifying stakes, and I'm going to try and get down for at least two or three
weeks this winter to train before I bring her home this summer. Hal works very well for Patti, but I have a sense that Chessies really work
best for their owners, (unlike Labs who will work for anybody that throws them birds and gives them food.) I plan to trial Hallie this summer. But her real life's work will begin this fall when we'll "officially" retire our 11 year-old Lab bitch, and Hal will take over as our main hunting dog. So heads up, Paul, I'll likely be sending you a few more Hallie hunting stories this fall.

Thanks for your time.

Best regards,
Ann Rothe
Eagle River, Alaska

[This message was edited by Paul Brown on May 02, 2002 at 09:37 AM.]