Christmas Eve Eve Limit

Alright so Weed and I got up and out early Thursday morning to hit a field I've been seeing geese in. We got there and set up before daybreak. As we were laying there waiting for the geese to fly we saw a truck drive into the adjacent field. I kept a close eye on them to see what they were doing. They started pulling decoys out of the truck...... I thought oh crap we just got hosed. I really didn't know which way the geese were coming in from but with them set up on the property line it couldn't be good for us. The first flock of geese started flying and my fear was realized when they pulled right into their set and they shot 2.
As the morning went on we watched as over 1000 geese and half that number in ducks dropped into a field 700 yards from where we were.
We were finally able to get a group that came from behind us work in. I called the shot and the geese fell, as soon as they were out of range I said ,"I got my two how did you do?". The answer was ,"you got 2 to?"
So here's the question part of the story: If we can have 2 geese as limit and we each got limit what happened?

(Jeopardy theme music)
If your answer was: what is shot the same goose, give yourself a gold star. Yep when the flock came over and I called the shot we picked the same goose to shoot with our first shot. When that one dropped (hard) we swung on another goose and dropped him.
Now we had a couple chances before we packed it in to get our other goose but couldn't pull it off.
Oh yeah before I forget here's a couple pics of the loaded down goose mobile.














I look like a hillbilly moving every time I go goose hunting. You know under the cover of darkness trying to avoid paying last months rent.

Anyway the super good news is after we got done hunting I went home, cleaned my birds, put my stuff away and went out to get permission to hunt the hot fields. I talked to 2 people and got permission on not only the hot field but another field 2 properties west of the hot field right in the flight path. So now I'm trying to put together when we can get out and shoot it. Should be a gosh darn good time.
Anyway have a very Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas

Well I haven't been very good at keeping this blog up to date as of late. I blame work, if I didn't have to go to work I would have more time to write and even a little time to hunt.
Anyway, I'll just start by saying,"I did not get a deer". I hunted all through bow season and a couple days of muzzle loader and came home empty.
Once again I shall proclaim that if it's brown it's down. I shall pass on no more medium sized deer. The last time I passed on deer hoping for something bigger I got skunked. This year was no different I had my chances and allowed small deer to walk. My new motto is,"young deer taste real good."

Two weeks ago Weed and I limited out on a field I got permission to hunt. The thing about this field is it generally holds alot of birds as long as you don't shoot 'em out day after day.
Now that I said that let me say that this hunt took place on a Thurs. After we shot our birds we had a hundred or so birds still working. We had messed up on 2 flocks of ducks and I noticed that one of the flocks of geese had a spec in it. We don't see spec's down here so I really wanted this bird. I even had a high passing shot when we were pickin' up our gear.
So with duck season ending the next week I decided then that this was the field I wanted to hunt. I made the arrangements and hunted this field the last day of duck season which was the next Tues.
I hunted all day and only managed 1 duck at 4:20 pm.Well as I was going to get my decoy bags I talked with the homeowner adjacent to the property and he asked me how I did. I told him and he said I missed it, apparently Sunday there were 200-250 birds, ducks and geese in this field.
There was even a coyote harassing them all day, trying to get a free meal.
Well after hearing that I knew what had happened, the cold weather froze up the roost and they left dodge for softer water. Since this day I have only seen a couple dozen geese out here. I am hopeful however that as soon as we get a break in the weather the geese will come back. I can only hope the spec is still with them. I am sure that anyone seeing this goose will be gunning for him. Almost like they would a neck banded goose. I hope he makes it so I can get him. :)
I am still getting out goose hunting as much as possible the last 2 days however have yielded nothing. I hunted a field 2 days ago after securing permission to hunt another field. I was seeing the geese but nothing wanted to play. This morning I did some pass shooting at the river with nothing to show for it.
Oh well there's always tomorrow, and I will be going out.
Until next time have a Merry Christmas, get out and hunt they haven't taken that away yet.

Good week

Have you ever had one of those days by which all others are measured?
Well that's how I started out my week. I went to the river on Tues. and had a great day. I brought home all I shot at minus one duck. Both the ducks and goose worked great. With just a quack or a honk, and they were setting their wings and looking for a place to land.The day started out warm and turned cold with 30 mph gusts.
It was however one of the best days I have had this year.





















I was supposed to hunt a field on Wed. but the wind was going to be blowing really bad. So I did a 180, grabbed my 20 gauge and headed for Huntington Res. for some pheasant.
I got down there pretty early and started hunting. I was only about 10 min into the hunt and I saw my first pheasant. Now I'm not going to mislead you, I tried for the ground pound.
I was denied, apparently there was too much weedage between the pheasant and myself. The shot spooked the bird and he took off, I nailed him to the ground with my second shot.
So there I was 10 min in and already had 1/2 my limit. I thought, "this is going to be easy".
Wrong, I saw 2 other birds and even heard one cackling in the morning, but I couldn't put my hands on another one. I did shoot a rabbit really dead.
So that's where I ended my day one rabbit and a pheasant. I did realize 2 things-
1. I'm no spring chicken anymore, and all the times I've heard ,"I'm too old to do that" I can relate. I used to be able to run up mountains while carrying all my gear and guns only to be stopped by darkness.
Wed. I had to slow down cause I got a cramp on the inside of my right leg. When that went away I got the same thing on my left leg. Thank goodness they didn't cramp in unison or I would still be in the woods unable to move.
The 2nd is I need to lose 1 or 30 pounds, and all this walking, hunting fun stuff would be alot more fun.

Day off number 3 or as normal people call it "Thursday".
I made it to the field I was going to hunt on Wed. and brought a friend from work. This was the first time I used the truck to haul all my stuff to the field, and let me tell ya it was packed. Next time I'll get a pic of the truck with all the gear in it.
Well I've been watching this field for a while and even though there was never a ton of birds on it, there were always birds on it. The only thing I didn't really know was what time they came in.
So we waited and waited and waited, there was very little even flying so we waited,did I mention we waited? Well we did, and it finally paid off with a flock of 25 or so birds coming in. They circled at least 3 times before committing to come in to land. The bad news is they wanted to land too far to the right. We had a house down the road on the right so I wanted to try to not shoot that way. I don't think we could've hit it but no sense tempting fate, so when they got close enough I gave the word and feathers flew. I unleashed my first shot on the goose the farthest left of the 15 or so birds to my right. I did hit him but he didn't go down, so I swung on the 5 or so birds to my left and dropped one. My buddy was able to connect on his second shot and there we were with geese on the ground. I got up and walked over to where my first goose was loosing altitude to see if I could find him. I couldn't find him so hopefully he's either dead or alive and not wounded somewhere.
We stayed for a wee bit longer, and just when I started checking the insides of my eyelids for cracks, he speaks up and says he's ready to pack it in. I didn't protest cause I really didn't think we would get anymore takers.



















He's really gotta get a hat.