Crowns Journey
A lot of my friends on here don’t have Facebook so I wanted to share my story here with yall. Squatty I know you’re out there somewhere. And Duckbuster68 I can’t thank you enough for putting crowns breeding together with Costa and Belle.
It still seems like it's all been a dream. 20 years ago I got the idea from a friend back home, Scott McWatty, that I wanted to hunt and harvest every huntable species of waterfowl in North America. Scott wanted to get all of his mounted and I came up with the idea that I wanted to have Costa by my side to retrieve them all. In January of 2009 Costa made the trip with me to California and we tried to get a Cinnamon Teal together. We hunted near the Salton Sea for two days, but never got a chance at a Cinnamon. We fell a few short on having costa getting them all, so we never went back out to attempt to get Costa a cinnamon.
16 years later I found myself back in Southern California once again chasing a cinnamon teal. This time it was the last bird on Costa's son, Crown's list. We spent 3 days in mud, muck and tough cover on the outskirts of the Salton Sea trying to connect and retrieve a drake cinnamon. In the final hour of the 3rd day it finally happened. That one bird we'd been looking for over the last 3 days, that one bird that I started looking for 16 years ago for Costa made his way into the decoys from over the reeds. With only enough time for one shot as he came across the pond we connected and he landed in the decoys. The rest is history as crown made the short retrieve to bring me his Drake Cinnamon Teal.
With Crown by my side we have traveled traveled across North America from Florida up to Greenland, over to Alaska and down to California to make this dream a reality. We've hunted The Bering Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Labrador Sea, marshes, swamps, fields, and anywhere in-between to get our birds. I'm proud to say that Crown has now retrieved for me, every huntable species of waterfowl in North America. The official 41 species as well as the Mexican Duck making 42. In addition to those he has also retrieved Aleutian teal, Borealis Common Eider and Eurasian Wigeon.
As I sat in the hole, holding crowns cinnamon, I couldn't help but think about everyone that has helped me and Crown along the way. There's too many to list, but know that I will forever be thankful to you all for being a part of this.
You did it Crown!
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Bay Creek Kennels- Hartsville, SC
Owner/Trainer- Rhett Riddle
Retriever & Obedience Training
Cell-803-608-2252
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HRCH Ace's Costa Del Mar MH. "Costa" 500 Point Club
GRHRCH Costa's Signature Blend MH "Crown" 500 Point Club
3x GRHRCH Crown of Ace's in Costa's Shadow MH QAA “Craig”
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Originally Posted by Highstrung
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