Make no mistake – as eager as the golden retriever is to sniff out a good time, it’s even more eager to sniff out a skulking rooster.
A while back, someone sent me a link to one of the damnedest video clips I’ve ever seen. There’s a wounded rooster pheasant sort of hung up in the branches of a tree limb, and as the camera rolls, a golden retriever scrabbles up the trunk of the tree, tight-walks out on the limb and does what golden retrievers are born and bred to do.
Outgoing and fun-loving, the golden is the original party animal. Make no mistake, though, as eager as the golden is to sniff out a good time, it’s even more eager to sniff out a skulking rooster. Of the “Big Three” retriever breeds, the golden is clearly the one with the largest percentage of its design and engineering devoted to upland work. And I’d wager that out of the universe of goldens used for hunting, the majority are primarily (if not exclusively) pheasant dogs.
This only makes sense, of course, when you consider that the golden’s family tree includes some rootstock from the setter-spaniel clan. They come by their pheasant-flushing prowess naturally. The golden’s lustrous coat requires a fair bit of maintenance—can you say “burr magnet?”—but it’s a price that its partisans are only too happy to pay.
Unfortunately, the golden’s immense popularity has served to water down the gene pool, so if you’re looking for a hunter, it’s vitally important to source your pup from proven field lines. As a very general rule of thumb, you don’t want the kind of goldens that look like they just stepped out of a mansion in Beverly Hills or a penthouse on Park Avenue.
You want their country cousins.
Archibald Rutledge has long been recognized as one of the finest sporting scribes this country has ever produced. A prolific writer who specialized in stories on nature and hunting, over the course of a long and prolific career Rutledge produced more than fifty books of poetry and prose, held the position of South Carolina’s poet laureate for thirty-three years, and garnered numerous honorary degrees and prizes for his writings.
In this revised and expanded edition of Bird Dog Days, Wingshooting Ways, noted outdoor writer Jim Casada draws together Rutledge’s stories on the southern heartland, deer hunting, turkey hunting and Carolina Christmas hunts and traditions. Shop Now
