It's Only Natural

With the weather the way it has been it has to be good, right? This morning I head out to old faithful, Old New Spot. It's cold, weather dude this morning said 19. Cold. I pull up and two trucks are there before I am. I pack up and head out. When I get down by the water I hear a fellow slayer, sounds like a 10 gauge. Nice I think action! I break through the woods and onto the peninsula. I greet the other guy, he has big spread filled with wind deeks and a nice chocolate lab named Winsten. The guys buddy is hunting the other side of the slough, his name is Dave, and he just winged that duck and it's swimming away. His dog Gunner, (we met Gunner a few years back he helped us retrieve a few ducks of our own) was in the water doing what he does retrieving. The wounded duck swam into the middle of the slough and gunner was after it, but he did not have a bead on it and Dave saw this. Gunner was about 50 yards out searching and searching for the winged bird. After about 5 minutes Dave got nervous, the cold weather and the 20 mph winds blowing east, Dave started to try and entice Gunner back to shore. Gunner being who he is had no part of it, he was going to find that winged duck if it killed him. I turned to the other hunter and said "he's not going to stop until he has that duck." He turned to me and said "of course not that's Gunner." After a few minutes more Gunner spies the downed duck and within seconds it is in his mouth, gently of course. By now Gunner is now more on our side of the slough and the Dave wants us to call Gunner over to our side. So after another 5 minutes of coursing we get Gunner on shore, he is whipped and he does not want to give up the duck he so eagerly retrieved. Gunner sat on shore with a huge smile on his face, "this is what I do" he thought.