Anyone who has lugged or dragged a limit of Canada geese across a plowed stretch of ground between the hide and the parked car can attest that Canadas (or any geese) are heavy. But rarely is a goose as big as the hunter who shot it thinks it is.

Guessing the weight of goose carcasses is almost as popular among waterfowlers as contests for shooting the largest dressed whitetail buck. A year or two back (well, maybe 10 to 12 years ago) I killed what without a doubt was the largest goose I've ever dropped over land or water from Mexico to Canada and points in between; mostly I confidently over-estimated their weight, as did follow hunters, neighboring farmers and loggers admiring this one.

One wildly imaginable estimator said "between 18 and 20 pounds." But most settled in the 14 to 16 pound bracket. My guess was "maybe a little over 12 pounds," not just to be contrary but because of what I'd been advised by a much older friend, years before.

In 1956, Clyde Mitchell, whose day job was supervising Remington Arms Co. field reps, was involved with a hunting club in Cameron Parish, Louisiana that counted and weighed geese harvested. The largest of the 590 geese shot tipped the scales at 10 pounds, another one weighed 91⁄2 pounds; the third largest was 9 pounds.

Curiosity and friendly bets prompted us to weigh my humongous honker (as you do a dog, climb on bathroom scale twice, with and without the dog.) There was a bit of acrimonious doubting about the shaky scale needle, but it was conceded that the big bird weighed "somewhere between 12 and 13 pounds" and I won beer cases enough to celebrate both Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

As an interesting note, one of the Cajun state geese shot in 1956 had been banded in 1935! Prior to the almost concurrent emergence of Ducks Unlimited (in 1937) and state governmental wildlife management divisions, banding birds by conservation-minded individuals was strongly encouraged.

Because of today's multiplicity of geese (to a point where they've been berated as nuisances in many areas), in contrast to the prizes they were in the Depression/Dust Bowl era, perhaps many birds are living longer and growing larger. At least a separate strain of "giant Canadas," announced to hunters by game managers just prior to the 21st century, weren't even speculated about 75 or so years ago.

My point is, however, that a decent-sized retriever can without too much strain walk, even trot, up to a shooter with most geese in his grip. Or were all the folktales of 10- to 20-pound foxes fleeing farmyard with the fattened domestic old gray goose slung over a shoulder mere figments of imagination?

Too much bother to try to train a goose retriever that might better be left at home?

Hardly. Some friendly statistician probably has up-to-date figures, considering money spent on various studies. But I'm satisfied to ride with that "study" conducted on the bayous by shooters in 1956. It has an addendum. Downed bird loss by hunters with retrievers was 4 to 5 percent, while 27 percent went unrecovered by those without retrievers.