Our Outdoors: A Wet Reminiscence

Muddy Buddy.  The author’s lab, Ole, with the rooster retrieved from the middle of the slough on the public access parcel they were hunting. Simonson Photo. By Nick Simonson With the boggy grasp of the slough gripping at my loosened boot, I pushed my way through the last 10 yards of cattails with my large, lumbering lab behind me.  Wedging my foot back inside, I pulled the boot free from the grip of the stinking mud and made my way to the edge of the slough and saw the rooster floating square in the middle of the water.  It was the same scene which had played out when my dog was just a pup, his second season in the wild chasing roosters on the exact piece of public access land. This time, however, it was my buddy Adam’s shot that had brought the bird down, and I gave him the play by play as each attempt to draw my tired lab’s attention to the floating pheasant failed.  Neither my dog nor I are waterfowlers by trade, so such a scenario of a water retrieve was a one-time ordeal more tha