My brother and I went out duck hunting this morning. Now we have hunted ducks for a number of years but never used a dog (we always hunted flooded timber in waders, so we just would walk out and get them ourselves). This year is our first year to take the boat out and hunt. We do have a pair of pups that we're working on training, but they don't retrieve yet.
Ok, that being said, we were out this morning. Pretty darn bad morning. I saw a flock of about 15 mallards that I couldn't call in, and then 2 wood ducks that wouldn't come in either. We were just about to leave when we saw a single duck; a teal. We hit the calls and it came for the decoy spread. It got almost there but veered away, but just inside of workable range. I put up and took a shot. He hit the water and was twitching away. It was late in the morning so we pull up anchor and get the push poll to go over and retrieve the downed bird. We get half way there and I see an eagle flying over. I'm not instantly alarmed; I've seen plenty eagles before. Then all of a sudden the little bastage swoops down and grabs the duck out of the water. Needless to say I was quite ticked off. Basically I just wanted to see how rare an occurance this is. I know it can't happen too often. Suprised the heck out of me.