This is a great goose hunting story

I have a friend, Ed Pineau, who lives on Webber Pond. He’s an avid hunter and has a great retriever.

One day recently, he looked out the window and saw a bunch of geese in the lake, not far beyond his dock.

So he grabbed his shotgun and walked out onto the dock. When the geese took off, he raised the gun, aimed at the closest goose, and fired. He was pretty surprised when three geese plunged back into the lake.

One was dead, but he had to shoot the other two again.

He looked back at his retriever in the pen and thought, I’m headed upta camp shortly, and I don’t want to get the dog wet before we take off.

So he put down the shotgun, walked down to the edge of the water, and plunged in, wading all the way out to the geese, grabbing all three, and wading back to shore. I’m told he didn’t use his mouth for the retrieve.

I can only wonder what that retriever was thinking as he watched his master retrieve those geese. And I sure do wish we’d gotten a video of that retrieve. Turns out my friend is a great goose dog!

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.