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We had Brittany's for decades. (similar dogs)
They'd point birds but retrieving was real iffy.
They'd find it and point it after the shot so it was ok with us.
I think maybe one of them would tolerate water but the others were thin-skinned big time.
They shed a lot too.

Not sure about springers. They remind me of the Brits we had.

"Wandering" with bumpers or birds is just one of the great many reasons for making "come" a training cornerstone. With it in place, it's a cinch to help Pup get "fetch" right.

Welcome to the board, Golden 1. I've not hunted over a springer since the '70s, but then had a friend with a friend who trialed them and got to tag along on a (wild) pheasant hunt with them. At that point in my then young life I'd not hunted over anything steady, and what impressed me most was their going from 60 to 0 so fast at flush. Though that none were subsequently lost because of it was a challenge to my own mentors' conviction that dogs (pointing in our case) had best be going with the birds to avoid losing chipped runners.

Long thought I'd someday have one of my own after my day with that fellow's pair, but it's not come to pass.

Gaduckhunter92 wrote:...but not so well with hand signals

Google "walking baseball". Assuming she's been taught the basic signals via "baseball," I doubt there's an easier or more fun for the dog way to condition them.

That kind of thing goes in the Hawaii forum bro.
How to gain access to the Hawaii forum is you have to ask Olly to activate you for it. (it's double top secret and x-rated)

The command I use for fetch is a signal. My open palm. Have observed hunted who had to do an extreme amount of yelling and whistling to work their dog onto a duck and decided that "that's not me".

Every command a retriever is taught should also have an accompanying hand signal. imo
Why? One day a train will go buy when your hunting the tracks and you gotta signal the dog to get out of the way sort of thing.
Once my dog almost chased a big group of peasants onto the interstate. Ditch under the road is where or hunts ended and sometimes the birds were there. WOA is extremely important.

Hand signals also help in that you can see when your dog is at that "what do I do now" point. Will look over it's shoulder at you.
Right then is when you start signalling left, right, back, or come back closer.
Milo is a rock-dog but once he starts looking back at me he's asking for instructions.
He'll swim a line all the way across the lake once I toss that rock so the throw has to be a good one.
Whistle stop is how I stop him. It's fun but we're sort of amateurs.