HISTORIC DUCK HUNTING STORIES THE GOLDEN AGE OF DUCK HUNTING

For decades, traditional canine historians have repeated the baseline fact that "the breed originated on the island of Newfoundland." where the genetic blueprints of the breedwere established earlier in time on the island. While technically true for its initial genesis, that narrative completely ignores the vital logistical funnel I described, which was that by 1800, the pure working dogs were heavily concentrated in Labrador, and it was from the Labrador coast that the British aristocracy actively sourced them and that the actual physical population of pure, tight-coated, ice-resistant dogs was structurally maintained and kept alive on the rugged Labrador mainland. Chappell's 1818 journal is thedefinitive "smoking gun" that proves Labrador wasn't just a random name given to the dog—it was the actual geographic sanctuary that saved the pure breed and exported it to the world. Because Labrador was geographically isolated from the island's legislative overreach (like the 1780 decree) andlodged deep-water seasonal cod fisheries, it became the primary repository for the purest working stock.

For the St. John’s evolutionary history to become the Labrador breed we know today here in America, it had to be refined from a strictly maritime water retriever into a precision land hunting dog. The first refinement came from the rough walked-up hunting of game birds in Great Britain. Then came the highly organized driven shoots, which required these proto-Labradors to become land-based masters of marking, sitting quietly under intense pressure, and retrieving game gently. With its British refinements complete, the breed’s final transition back to a water retriever occurred in America, where it truly took hold in the early 20th century. Here, the breed met the demands of the vast, rugged North American waterfowl marshes, forcing it toreclaim its legacy as the ultimate, hardcore, ice-breaking water dog.

By the middle of the 19th century, there were only three places where proto-Labradors were being bred and propagated in any kind of organized fashion: at Heron Court, which was the estate of the 2nd Earl of Malmesbury in the south of England, the Scottish estate of the 5th Duke ofBuccleuch and his brother, Lord John Scott, and the Scottishestate of the 10th Earl of Home. For nearly 50 years, the England and Scottish breeding program operated in total isolation, completely unaware that they were importing the exact same dogs from the same northern maritime network.

The 5th Duke’s kennel is widely considered the birthplace ofthe modern Labrador Retriever. Based in the Scottish Borders, it holds the unique distinction of maintaining the longest continuous, pure strain of Labradors in the world, dating directly back to the 1830s.

The key to the beginnings of the Labrador breed was the work of two British aristocrats: the 2nd Earl of Malmesbury and the 5th Duke of Buccleuch. Similarly, the key to the ultimate establishment and survival of the breed lay with their sons, the 3rd Earl of Malmesbury and the 6th Duke of Buccleuch. To maintain this legacy, the Malmesbury, Buccleuch, Home, and Scott estates employed dedicated gamekeepers and kennel stewards to manage their famous duck-shooting preserves and celebrated lines of retrievers. Duck hunting was a vital component of the aristocraticsporting calendar, and these specific preserves left a profound, permanent impact on the development of the modern Labrador.

With Episode 73, Part III, we continue to trace the incredible, centuries-old story of how the Labrador Retriever conquered the world to become the world’s most popular dog, from a rugged fisherman’s tool to a historic legacy, wrapped in a loyal companion.

The Labrador’s story begins with the St. John’s water dog—an animal born of the wild frontier of Newfoundland. This was a landscape of jagged forests and churning tides, home to one of the most brutal and productive marine ecosystemson earth. Here, the St. John's Water Dog was forged. They were not dogs of luxury; they were the resilient partners of common settlers and wind-bitten fishermen.

But excellence rarely stays hidden.

From the rugged Canadian coastline, these dogs caught the eyes of English aristocrats. They were brought across the ocean to the genteel motherland, stepping onto the sweeping shooting estates of wealthy Englishmen. It was there that the rough-edged fisherman's tool was refined into the sleek, noble Labrador.

TheLabrador’s story begins with the St. John’s water dog—an animal born of thewild frontier of Newfoundland. This was a landscape of jagged forests andchurning tides, home to one of the most brutal and productive marine ecosystemson earth. Here, the breed was forged. They were not dogs of luxury; they werethe resilient partners of common settlers and wind-bitten fishermen.

Butexcellence rarely stays hidden.

From the rugged Canadian coastline, these dogs caught the eyesof English aristocrats. They were brought across the ocean to the genteelmotherland, stepping onto the sweeping shooting estates of wealthy Englishmen.It was there that the rough-edged fisherman's tool was refined into the sleek,noble Labrador.

The true story of the world's favorite dog is an international maritime phenomenon. It combines ancient Roman, Visigoth, Moor, Newfoundland, English, and American know-how, three distinct European and English water-working dogs, and a famous pointer landrace that were permanently transformed into the Labrador Retriever: the “KING OF RETRIEVERS.”Like the classic 1966 film titled A Man for All Season, the Lab is a dog of all seasons, a dog for all reasons. Long may the Lab reign.

The evolutionary journey from the ancient Roman water dogs to the Canadian St. John’s Water Dog spans nearly two millennia, mapping the expansion of European trade, maritime fishing, and selective working adaptations. While the St. John's Water Dog went extinct in the 1980s, its genetic legacy forms the foundation of all modern retrievers, including the Labrador.

As a living mosaic of world history, the modern LabradorRetriever possesses a lineage that stretches back millennia through a global tapestry of empires. Before it was America’s cherished companion, this dog was a phantom of the North Atlantic—a rugged worker born from the legendary St. John’s water dog. Tracking the Labrador's history is like sailing through time on a sprawling international voyage. Its bloodline carries the genetic echoes of ancient Rome, the migrations of the Visigoths, a branch of the Goths, and the trading routes of the Moors. These diverse roots were carried across the ocean by Portuguese and Spanish mariners, who refined them and whose seafaring dogs laid the foundation on the rocky shores of Newfoundland of a distinct proto-Labrador, later to be ultimately perfected by driven hunts into a breed by the English and later by American field trialers, land hunters, and the waterfowler in the wetlands.

Hundreds of wildfowlers have left their mark on the history of wildfowling on the Atlantic coast after having given us many historical narratives, but one family, the Cobb family, stands out as having left us with their everlasting narratives and  most of all with their decoy carvings, which set the trend at the time and which were intended to document waterfowl and shorebird behavior.

The story of the Cobbs is a great American tale about uprooting oneself and family, finding a new home, and through sheer determination and perseverance, through tragedy and setbacks, ultimately thriving in a new place. The Cobbs took a big, empty sandbar and created a vibrant working community for nearly 100 years. So, perhaps it is time to re-introduce them and tell their story.

It was an extraordinary, exceptional paradise tucked away in the super-funnel of the Mississippi Flyway that Wild Acres came to represent and often described in newspapers and hunting lore as the “Paradise of Duckdom.” Here, year after year, gravel-throated voyagers, migrating down from the north, interrupted their journey to linger on Wallace Claypool’s 1,350 acres of greentree reservoir, where they fed in the nearby rice fields and feed-filled sloughs, rivers, marshes, bayous, and lakes along with feeding on acorns in his greentree-timbered area.

Wallace Claypool was a firm believer in physical fitness, exercising every day. He could perform stunts of strength that amazed younger men. Golf was his game back in the 1920s. Then in 1925, he ventured into a sport that would lead him to receive national recognition as a conservationist. He was famously quoted as saying that “if the wild duck is to avoid the fate of the passenger pigeon, somebody must furnish it with food, water, and a place to rest.”

Claypool acquired 5,000 acres in 1942 by forfeiture from the state due to unpaid taxes, by Quitclaim Deeds from two Drainage Districts, and land from two different individuals. He immediately built a 1,350-acre reservoir, 800 of which would be under water controlled by levees once completed in 1943. After 1943, the duck population increased steadily to about 200,000 ducks, but duck hunting was severely limited due to WWII.

From 1945 onward until the drought years began in1959, which lasted through the first half of the 1960s when hunting on Wild Acres was limited to hunting only three days during the week, Wild Acres’ duck population ranged from 250,000 to half a million. It was a spectacle like no other, bewildering wildlife biologists who traveled to Wild Acres to observe. Even as late as December 8, 1960, newspapers such as the Fort Worth Star Telegram were still calling it the “New Duck Capital of the World."

For it was here at Wild Acres that hungry hordes gathered in tremendous numbers in the low, lush wintering grounds. It was here where the hunting was the very best, when the walnut stock was sweat-wet against the hunter’s cheek.

It was indeed the "Paradise of Duckdom."

To some, Reelfoot Lake,nestled in the far northwestern corner of Tennessee, was known as the “Paradiseof Sportsmen.” Others referred to it as the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” whileWalt Disney called it “Mystery Lake.” But most referred to it as the“Chesapeake Bay of the South.” With wintery winds sweeping from the north overthe broad breast of the Mississippi River, it looked, at times, like all theducks of North America had gathered to feast along its shallowbanks.

After having beenthe home to mankind for more than 12,000 years, Reelfoot became the most-usedaerial highway of migratory waterfowl during the spring and autumn—ducks,geese, swans, sandhill cranes, and shorebirds. Historically, in its early years, the lake wasmost famous for the canvasback which was often referred to as the "King ofDucks,” as their flight through the lower-middle Mississippi Valley saw themain body stop at Reelfoot where wild celery grew.

To many, it would become the eighth wonder of the world. It is not an official designation but a reflection on the awe inspiring, spectacular natural phenomenon and wonder that covered the sky with billions of pigeons, but it wouldn’t last, as billions dwindled to millions, to thousands, to one, then to extinction. Sadly, this spectacle was lost forever, driven to extinction in a matter of a few decades, going from billions to zero in a span of less than 50 years.

For 50,000 years or more, wild passenger pigeons traveled the skyways inincredible numbers that seem unimaginable to us today. When the Old-World people began arriving, millions of pigeons saturated the skies. Over the interveningyears, European and settler invaders were immensely ecstatic and teeming withextraordinary admiration as they witnessed this unique innate beauty of the grandest and most unique natural phenomenon in the history of the world.

The question must be asked, “Will the canvasback or can the canvasback ever recover and occurin numbers that would allow no closed seasons?”

It is doubtful, and if it does it will be through dedicated restoration efforts by transplanting and sowingthe seeds of wild celery, wapato, and a plant I haven’t mentioned for canvasbacks, the pondweed. In doing so, many depleted ducking wetlands can be restored and thus new ducking grounds can be created.