Huskies
Brian,
My family has two huskies and they are both great dogs. The female is fairly high strung and would not sit still long enough to allow me to fish, but the male is a very different dog and would probably make a fine fishing companion. The only problem that you may encounter with a husky is that they are a little too tuned into their ancestral hunting instincts sometimes. We were told by numerous breeders, including the breeder that we got both dogs from, that no matter how well you train the dog, when confronted by a prey item, ie a rabbit, they have atendency to ignore all stay commands and instead choose to chase and all advised to leash the dogs at all times when not in an enclosed area. According to the breeder we bought from this has included several of her dogs that have escaped from her property and have been found running through fields miles from her home, as well as a customer of hers who's husky was a 12 year old, obedience and show dog champion, who while off leash walking through a park with his owner spotted a rabbit or a squirrel and chased it, ignoring the commands that had been its entire life, into the street and into the grill of a car. It was not a happy ending for anyone involved.
Its not to say that all huskies will not listen to stay commands when trained properly, but I have not heard of any other dogs acting in the same manner, and the fact that four or five different breeders said the exact same thing definitley raised flags. Another issue with our dogs is that they are not swimmers. We probably introduced them to the water at a bit of a late age, but they still never took. The female, who is short hair is terrified when she can no longer feel her feet on bottom, and the male who has longer fur looks like he is going to sink when he gets too deep and then takes a day or two to dry off.
With that said, they are great dogs, and I think are fantastic family dogs and as well they are extremely intelligent. If dogs can problem solve, then huskies are definitely in this class. I hope this helps,
Mike