My waterfowl season has come to an end

I was out scouting on Sunday after work East of the Fort, I was seeing birds but nothing in my fields. I gave my buddy Tom a call to see if he has seen any geese. Upon answering the phone he blurted out, "when you gonna come out and shoot these geese". That's all I needed to hear, I put the car in drive and headed to the other side of town. When I got there I was amazed at how many geese were in the field. I decided right there to hunt his property for the next 3 days.

Day 1: I gave Jake a call and he rounded up Andy and Scott and we piled into a couple trucks and headed South. This was their last hunt for the year because of work obligations. We set up on the North side of the property where most of the geese were Sunday. In hindsight, we should've set up on the corner where I usually set up. We did manage to scratch out a couple birds early.

We had birds but they just didn't want to work, the kept flying to a spot West of where we were.
Scott and I jumped in the truck and he brought me over to where I could walk up these birds and hopefully they would fly at least over the other guys. Well, after getting the go-ahead call from Jake I started up the treeline to the main field. I just about reached the corner of the trees when a shot rang out. All the birds that were in the field picked up and headed West-Northwest. I quickly got into a position to shoot just in case something came overhead. Nothing really came close enough to me for a shot, so I started walking back to the blinds. Thinking the whole way that somebody wasn't really clear on the plan. Either that or it was, "play a joke on the guide day". When I got back I found out they had a single come in quite and Jake shot at it in self-defense.
As I was walking back we had geese all over and it wasn't too long before they had a three pack do it right.

I watched it all unfold as I was walking back. When I got back we hung out until they had to get home. We ended up with 6 birds, 3 birds shy of their limit. I didn't get any on Monday but I'm sure I'll make up for it the rest of the week.

Jake Andy and Scott

 Day 2: Out by myself, none of my buddies could go. I packed in 6 full bodies and a dozen white rocks. I set up in the low spot on the property and just hid in the treeline. I didn't get any video (operator error) because all the kill shots were out of frame. I shot my limit of Canada geese by 9am.

It had rained the evening prior so it was a little muddy out, but not too bad.

Day 3: Raining all the way to the property and rained at least the first couple hours of the hunt. I only had a couple hundred-yard death march through the muck which you would sink the first 4 inches.  I only had to make 2 trips out and back to get all my gear and decoys out.

As I looked around I found the spot I wanted to set up, I set up for an Eastern wind. I knew the wind would change halfway through the day. The bad thing was as I brought out my second load I thought the wind had already changed so I changed the setup and got ready for the day.

When the geese started flying the wind had changed back from the East, so the birds coming in wanted to land behind me.  I did drop one of the birds from the couple flocks that tried to land behind me.
Then the fog rolled in and all flights were delayed.

When the fog lifted around 2pm all flights were cleared for take off. I had a flock come in close enough for me to carve my 2 Canada's out of it. I wasn't sure if my limit was 3 or 5.... let me explain.
I have been hunting this property for better than 20 years and have seen 7 white-fronted geese, 6 of which I saw this day. This was the early flock that came in was able to take one of the birds... an adult specklebelly.

how cool is this goose?

So I wasn't sure if I could take 3 Canada's plus 2 "others" or if it was 3 geese total. I errored on the side of caution and just took my 3 bird limit. Unfortunately, when I got home and checked the regs I could've taken one more Canada goose and one more other. Oh well, lesson learned, always carry regs.
My next conundrum was to stuff or eat..... I have been on a quest to get this goose ever since I saw my first one all those years ago. I also have heard these are the best tasting of the geese. After a lot of thought and consideration, I did decide to eat him and get my next one mounted.
I may live to regret that choice.

With the taking of this prized goose, it ended the 2018 waterfowl season for me.
What a way to go out.