James, my post is as serious as the other part of becoming king! It's a reflection of the lousy judgement re range and retrieval prospects, sky-busting, no effort to retrieve cripples or even dead drifting offshore.

It's endemic. I shoot mostly over decoys, pick my shots and have lost exactly three birds over the last 45 years: once when a black came down dead and pierced the ice and slid for about six feet. The ice was too thick for dog and too thin for me.

The other two occasions were when I called in great dogs pursuing crippled bluebills in foot-and-half whitecaps 300 metres from shore. They would have stayed until they drowned. Duck hunting for me is mostly the dog. Today's gunners don't approach the ethos of even the old poachers.