Scott Vance's Blog

It’s been a long, hot and busy summer. Hydro has done a tremendous job training this summer. He’s also been a very busy stud dog siring 5 litters of very nice puppies.

Stephen Durrence has done wonders with him transforming him from just a very talented, strong dog with wonderful natural abilities to a tremendous team player with those same God-given talents. Hydro has really adjusted well to Stephen’s methods and very high standards. He is looking EXTREMELY good and we have very high hopes for a good showing this fall. No matter how things turn out, Hydro is much, much better than he has ever been and will put a LOT of ducks and geese in the boat and blind this year. I am extremely proud of him and his progress.

One notable aspect of the GRAND this year are two of the youngest participants. Colby Williams (20 year old college kid) will be running HRCH Riptide’s Ragin Red BullSprig (2 yrs old) this year. Sprig is out of Hydro’s first litter and he has become a PHENOM. He is as strong a marker as anyone has ever seen and he is quickly becoming a tremendous team player capable of some extremely high level dog work. I cannot wait to see him run in the biggest hunt test in the world. We are very, VERY proud of them both!HYDRO makes a pretty tough land test look easyCrushing a nasty stick pond blind

Well the agony has begun. I am starting to feel very anxious, nervous, nauseous and excited about the upcoming International Grand Hunt Test in Jackson, LA. Hydro is training with Stephen Durrence (www.taylorfarmskennels.com) for the event and I feel like my first born has just left home for the military academy. Stephen is by far the best that I’ve ever had the opportunity to observe and learn from. He demands perfection like no other trainer I have ever seen. His dogs shine above all others in the Hunt Test arena and the attention to detail and strict obedience and teamwork really shows.

Now for the anxious part…….I did all the training with Hydro and anyone that has been around Dro knows his zeal for life and hunting. He’s high on life and people and LOVES what he does for a living. That being said, he’s kind of like Micheal Irvin when he played for the Cowboys. He shows up late for practice wearing gold chains and diamonds, shines on game day and may err on the side of over confidence when dealing with the coach. I created that “attitude” in Hydro and I like it. I tend to have the same one, minus the gold and diamonds……….

Problem is that attitude doesn’t match up too well with Stephen’s standards so Hydro is struggling a little with this new level of “obedience”. Stephen has proven that his techniques work by passing lots of Grand dogs (not to mention winning the SRS in Huntsville) and having Judges and other trainers alike envious of his dogs line manners and precise retrieving work. I just hope Hydro is “flexible” enough to adhere to these new rules. I never ever even thought that Hydro would be running hunt tests when I picked him up from breeder much less running the biggest Hunt Test on earth. I guess I should relax and enjoy the ride, but that ain’t my style…..

I’m staying completely out of the fray with fingernails shredded into the quick and sleepless nights. Stay tuned to see what happens and if anyone wants to start a support group I’ll provide the refreshments!

On a another note, Hydro has several girlfriends lined up in the next few weeks. Go to www.bigcreeklabs.com for information on a repeat breeding with Indy. These will be NICE, NICE puppies for home or hunt test. I also have him lined up for some remote action in Oregon, Florida and of course we are still planning a litter out of Booyah if we can hit the right window. More to come…….

Got back from south LA last Saturday and been beatin off alligators all week at work. Finally got a minute to post a trip update.

Left Dec. 27th and drove down to south LA where I have some friends with crawfish ponds and rice fields. The NR license in LA has gone up and now that they don’t offer the $75 5 day NR hunt anymore. Cost us all $175 to hunt 5 days….that’s pretty pricey…

Anyhow, got there and the duck report was bad, bad. No ducks on the crawfish ponds. Monday AM I figured out why. The ponds had been drawn down at the wrong times and were full of cocklebur and horseweed. Nothing for a duck to eat. Saw 20 ducks all morning.

Afternoon rolls around and I’m in panick mode burning up the cell phone towers. Low and behold a young man drives up and says “hear yall nee sum pleec to hunt sum duck”. Of course we were all ears and soon were headed to a rice field about 10 minutes from where we were staying. When we rounded the corner of the pond dike about 6,000 teal, pintails, mallards and spoonies got up along with 4-5,000 specklebellies. It was an awesome sight especially since our newly found host said we could hunt there all week. Wow……made a note to get this young man something REALLY nice…..

We made the best of it and killed 88 ducks in 5 days of hunting. Some days we had 4 hunters and others we had 6, but we dang near limited out everyday and if we’d hunted past 10 and/or shot spoonies we’d have posted 6 each on all days. We decided to let the pond rest in the afternoon and it was real cool to see thousands of ducks coming to the pond from the basin every day when we were picking up our motion dekes.

Don’t know the exact numbers but we shot about 60% blue-winged teal, 10% green-winged teal, 15% shovelers (first and second day jitters and twitches), 5% pintails, 5% mallards, and 5% widgeon. My dad and a friend that were with me have some nice pintails and BWT for the wall. Dad killed a full plummage drake shoveler that will adorn his trophy room as well. They are really beautiful birds.

Hydro did the retrieving honors and was as usual a machine. Those crippled teal did give him some headaches in those rice fields though. He finally figured out that if he just went to the fall area and then stood really still on a rice row they would come up and he could pounce on them. Before that he had some 15 minute chase sessions to catch the little devils.

Cool trip all around, but the birds in LA are way spread out. ALL of the other locals were whining about no ducks and too much water. We got MEGA lucky to find our host. Thanks Tori! We owe you big time!! Hydro says you are his new best friend!!!

Light up the cigars…..Just got word that 8 more healthy Hydro chocolate pups were born on November 27th at Cresthill kennels. For those who wanted one…bad news…they were all spoken for long ago. Sold them for $1,400 each. These will be really nice puppies. We look forward to hearing from their new owners.

We have several breedings planned for Hydro this winter including several dogs in Georgia and a few long distance breedings on the west coast.

Check out www.bigcreeklabs.com for a repeat breeding with Indy (a 6XGRHRCH Dakota’s Cajun Roux MH pup). We are also shipping swimmers long distance to Oroville, Washington to Dixie at McCoy labradors. If you want more info on these pups give me a holler and I’ll get you in touch with Christa McCoy.

On another note, two 15 mnth old Hydro pups got some action this past week with the SC waterfowl openers. HRC HR Riptide’s Ragin Red BullSprig got his first REAL hunting retrieve this weekend with a nice fat woodie drake and Abbey got her hunting feet wet with some swamp action and goose hunting. These pups are phenomenal and we expect big things from both of them.

!!!NEWS FLASH!!!

At just 15 months old, Sprig is now officially Hunter Retriever Riptide’s Ragin Red Bullsprig!

Colby Williams (a first time trainer) handled him to his UKC HRC seasoned title last weekend up in Clinton SC with a tremendous showing. He is truly an amazing puppy and has all the talents of his sire, plus a firebreathing retrieving desire second to none! His marking skills are unbelievable and for a 15 month old dog he handles like a dream.

Sprig is as handsome as they come (check out the gallery) and we expect even bigger and better things from him in the near future.

The entire little that Sprig came from (Hydro X Allie) are all phenomenal puppies. I’m training one of Sprig’s littermates (Abbey) right now and she’s like driving a Cadillac, elegant and stylish with plenty of power.

The Hydro X Indy puppies are also beautiful and showing tremendous promise. We plan to do a repeat breeding with Indy in February.

Wish I had better news, but Illinois just wasn’t on this time. We had no wind, 70 degrees and blue bird sky the whole trip. Not conducive to massive duck migrations and feeding movements. We did kill lots of Maker’s Mark each night……….

I think we ended up scratching down a bird for each hr we drove. That would be 32. Wow, that really is terrible!

We did have some great dog work and Dro keeps getting better all the time and continues to amaze me with his laid back attitude in the blind and tremendous drive when the birds hit the water. He sat on a little float pod on the back of a Beavertail boat for 7 hrs one day and only got 5 retrieves. The pod step was so small and he’s so big that either his toes or his “Joe’s” were in the water the whole time…. he was a trooper.

He made one retrieve that will be remembered forever. We were hunting near a diked reservoir where about 5,000 mallards and geese were denned up. One mallard drake made a swing that was a little outside the pond dike and got winged by a compadre. He spiraled down about 150 yards out and hit the water swimming. I sent Hydro and he made up the distance fast (water was about waist deep and that’s running water for long-legged Dro).

I watched the duck swim another 100 yards to the dike while Dro got to the fall area. I gave him a sit whistle and a back command when he got to the fall area and he took it all the way to the dike. That’s when the guys told me the duck had waddled over the top and went out of sight…….

I gave Dro an over until he smelled the bird, then gave him a dead whistle. He disappeared over the top and was gone for about 3 or 4 minutes. I was starting to think 5,000 mallards were going to get up with a huge brown dog right behind them, but low and behold he emerged with a fat mallard in his mouth wagging that huge brown tail. Nice one. One I won’t ever forget. He got an extra pat on the noggin and a little tear in the eye for all the hard work.

It was worth the 32 hr drive for that one retrieve.

I had planned to get Hydro’s Master Hunter title by now, but we’re taking the fall off from hunt tests this year. Just too many other family obligations to train effectively and consistently. I’m just gonna let Hydro be a great hunting dog this fall and turn him over to a pro this spring in preparation for the Grand Hunter Retriever Championships in Lafayette, LA.

Hydro and I had a great dove season. We always look forward to those first few hunts of the year even though the bugs and the heat down here are horrid. Tip: to keep your dog cool on early season hunts take a 1 gallon, clean pump sprayer full of ice water. Mist him as necessary to keep him cool and you can also wash feathers, sand, etc out of your dogs mouth. Works great!

I got to take Dro on 3 different dove hunts this year and he did great on them all. He did some incredible blind retrieves when folks way across the field would drop a bird as he was picking one up for me. Probably the most memorable was a 234 yard blind (yes we did rangefind the distance! ) across two rows of standing corn, a ditch and did it with 4 whistles. Impressive!
His marking skills continue to amaze me even though I know he’s good. I’ve come to learn that when he locks on its for real. He knows much better than I do where the bird fell. He did several 150+ yard marked doubles like it was nothing.

I think he tallied about 65 retrieves so far this dove season, including picking up birds during a “Hunt with a Hero” hunt for disabled veterans. Very cool.

Planning lots of waterfowl hunts this year including Pool 13 in Illinois, Missouri River bottoms in Missouri and a late season hunt on crawfish ponds in Louisiana. Oh and of course, we’ll hunt every morning we can here locally in South Cakalaka too. Lots of water right now and should be a good year for woodrows.

I bred Hydro to a female named Shelby out of Cresthill Kennels in Virginia in September. Should be some really nice puppies. Hydro’s last litter with Indy (Big Creek Labs) are ready to go home with their new owners. They were awesome puppies and I know theres already a waiting list for the repeat breeding this spring. Artificial breedings lined up with some west coast girls this fall.

Stay tuned for photos and stories!