As for picking up after a flurry of shooting, my Lab last week brought in five dead from the water and two cripples in blind retrieves from a nearby cornfield in less than seven or eight minutes. Try that in a boat.
Actually not that hard at all. Although I have never tried to launch a boat in a cornfield.
Over my 50 years of hunting I have seen slobs with dogs and slobs without dogs, and have personally hunted extensively with and without dogs. A dog doesn't make an ethical hunter, and neither does the absence of one. It is solely dependent on the person holding the gun.
I have been around countless hunters with dogs who I wouldn't want to ever spend another day afield with again due to their (and their dogs) boorish and ill trained behavior. And I have hunted with men who could put any retriever to shame with how skilled they are at marking a downed bird in heavy cover and make a quick retrieve.
We do not need elitism in the hunting fraternity, and the dog vs no dog mantra is one of the oldest fallacies in the book and is based solely on ignorance.
