Better Duck Hunting: the Robo Duck and a Quality Retriever

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm not a purist. I like to hunt anything, anytime, anywhere with anybody. The more different kinds of hunting I can do in a day, the happier I am. This season I've found my ultimate playground -- the Tenn-Tom Hunting Lodge located just outside Pickensville, Alabama, on the Tenn-Tom Waterway. This fine lodge offers duck hunting in the morning and deer hunting in the afternoon. Or, you can duck or deer hunt all day. But I prefer to shoot quacks at daylight and bag whitetails in the afternoon. This week we'll introduce you to the people and the hunting on the Alabama/Mississippi border along the Tenn-Tom Waterway that creates river navigation from the port of Mobile, Alabama, into the Great Lakes region.

Tony Dutton of Northport, Alabama, a guide at the Tenn-Tom Hunting Lodge, has a 5-year-old Labrador retriever named Savannah. But unlike most duck hunters, Dutton didn't buy Savannah as a pup and then train her. "When I really got serious about duck hunting, I found the fellow who had Savannah," Dutton explained. "He'd already trained her, and I finally got him to put a price on the dog. I had to pay it because I knew she was worth the price."

Dutton, like many other waterfowlers, has come to realize that often you'll actually save money by purchasing a trained retriever rather than buying a pup and spending hundreds, if not, thousands of hours training the dog. Once you add in dogfood and vet bills, you'll pay about the same for a trained dog as you will if you buy a pup and train it yourself -- and possibly less if you calculate the value of your time. "Also, when you purchase a trained dog, you know exactly what you've bought because you know the dog's temperament, its ability to take commands and how it retrieves," Dutton emphasized. "You have a more information before the sale about the dog when you buy a retriever that someone has already trained."

Dutton believes that one of the most important qualities to look for in a retriever is the ability of the dog to sit still in the blind. "When ducks circle over the blind, they look down into the blind," Dutton advised. "If you have a nervous dog that won't sit still, the ducks will see movement and not come in to your calls or decoys. Although everyone looks at a dog's ability to retrieve and to take commands either from a whistle or hand signals, those positive traits are erased if a dog moves around a lot in the blind and spooks the ducks you're trying to take."

Dutton also searches for a dog with a good nose. If the dog doesn't see the duck hit the water, and you have to direct it to the area where the bird has fallen, the dog must have a good nose to smell the bird and make the retrieve. If the dog doesn't have a keen nose, the dog will have to swim for a long time before it makes visible contact with the duck.

"Also, look for a calm dog," Dutton said. "Labradors tend to be very high-strung and nervous dogs, especially if they come from field trial stock. Field-trial dogs behave like coiled springs waiting to explode. Often these dogs won't mind very well because they get so excited about hunting. So when you pick a dog, choose a dog with a calm disposition that will take instructions well and sit still in the blind."

Perfect dogs don't exist. When I asked Dutton about Savannah's biggest fault, he grinned sheepishly and said she breaks and jumps out of the blind when she sees ducks sitting on the water in the decoys. "She doesn't always break, but sometimes the pressure of having those ducks swimming close to the blind proves more than Savannah can stand," Dutton said.

On the morning we hunted together, Dutton had set out a Robo Duck, a decoy with wings that turned to give the appearance of a duck landing on the water. But after the second flight of ducks didn't come in, Dutton waded out and retrieved the Robo Duck as he told me, "The Robo Duck has become so popular that almost all the duck hunters up and down the flyway have one. I believe by the time the ducks get to Alabama and Mississippi that they've seen so many Robo Ducks that the device spooks the ducks. So I'll hunt with the Robo Duck at first light. However, if the ducks refuse to come in to my blind, I'll retrieve the Robo Duck and just use the Feather Flex decoys."

If you get your limit of ducks in the morning or if you just decide not to hunt ducks in the afternoon at the Tenn-Tom Lodge, you can hunt white-tailed deer over greenfields in the afternoon.

For more information on the Tenn-Tom Hunting Lodge, write the Tenn-Tom Hunting Lodge, 16234 Buggs Ferry Road, Macon, Mississippi, 39341; or, call owner Hugh Snoddy at (662) 726-9909 or lodge manager Kenneth Crimm at (205) 662-3382.

Tomorrow: Deer Hunting on the Mississippi/Alabama Border