For the past month the geese have been leaving roost around 9:30-10:30. Setting up later in the morning goes against all I believe in, but it feels pretty good to sleep in.
Monday I left the house headed for town at 7:30am, when I got to my spot at 8:30 I unloaded the trailer into the boat and headed out to the field to get set up. While I was setting up I had a flock of 8 geese flying around trying to get into the field. You might think that's a good thing but it's really not. Once one group is out, more get up to feed and if your not ready you could just be hangin' out in a field with decoys all day. Well, the front that was coming in stirred the geese up a little early and I neglected to account for it. Anywho, I finally got set up and started working some birds, who picked me out easily and headed off to greener pastures. After a couple flocks had flared I realized I needed some white on my blind to match the snow cover. So I headed back to the truck to get some white strips to weave into the blind. Once I got back I started weaving the strips in and had a four pack try to land right over me. I stayed as still as I could until they were shootable then I popped my blind door open, from the outside, grabbed my gun turned and dropped my first goose of the day. Then the hunt turned into the waiting game which I took advantage of to get some well deserved sleep. Around midday I had a single goose do it right, without any coaxing from me, he just came right in. After I shot all three rounds that damn goose stayed up for 350 yards flying down the field before he crashed. Let me tell you that was a fun walk 😠. It was now working on getting close to sunset and the end of my day, when a flock started working in from a long ways off. I worked them into the kill hole and finally ended my day, taking my last goose from that flock.
As Barney Calef would say, "stick and stay, make 'er pay".
I'm not sure if this is a true lesser but I do know it was alot smaller then the geese we usually get around here. Yeah, I know I mentioned snow but there's no snow, it snowed all day and then turned warm enough to melt it.
Tuesday was day off and scout in the evening.
Wednesday found my back in town having found birds on Tom's property. When I got there I started unloading the trailer and had made my first trip out when Jake showed up. We loaded up the rest of the gear and I made my second trip out to the field. When I got back Jake and I walked out to start setting up. We set up our blinds only to see that the snow that had fallen the previous night made them stick out like a sore thumb. So I walked the 550 yards (google earth pro) there and back with my white strips to weave into the blinds. Once I got back we came to the conclusion that that wasn't going to work, so I made the walk again to get my snow covers. As I tried to get the snow covers on the blinds we had out there I came to the realization that they weren't going to fit, since these are not the blinds they go on. The blinds that the snow covers did go on were in my truck, I again made the walk. This time I came back out on the wheeler, much easier. Jake ran the wheeler behind us to a fence row while I put the blinds together and put the snow covers on. When he got back we started packing our gear in our blinds and generally getting ready for the hunt. I had too much stuff for my blind so I had to walk a decoy bag to the wheeler (350 yards). When I got there I moved the wheeler to the opposite side of the fence row out of site of approaching geese, Jake said it was far enough that it wouldn't matter. I didn't want any technical issues to compromise this hunt. When I got back to the setup I couldn't remember if I had turned my gas off on the wheeler, so off I went to make sure that it was off. Halfway back to the setup I couldn't remember if I had turned the wheeler off, turn around and go back. After making sure all was right with the wheeler I headed back to the setup to settle in for the hunt.
A pair of geese were the first to show up ready to play, when they got close enough Jake called the shot. I dropped one he dropped the second and we were on the board. We had a couple flocks come in and not do it. There was a flock way off to the North so we started working them, they were coming in high but they were comin' in so we got ready. They were continually getting closer and within the last 50 yards or so they started maple leafing to drop air. With landing gear down Jake called the shot, I shot twice and dropped 2 he shot twice and dropped one. With that volley I was done and we only needed one more for Jake.
After a half hour of no action Jake says, "well no reason to stick around for one goose, we can pack up".
WHAT???? I told him there was no way were leaving after all the miles I logged in this field to make this hunt happen. Were stayin' 'til you get your last goose, it was only 11am by that time. We had a good
laugh and agreed that we can start to pack up no later than 1.
Not long after that the geese started moving a little bit and we had a flock of 8 that wanted to play. We worked 'em all the way in for the perfect shot on the Jake show and..... whiff.... whiff.... whiff.
Someone continued his ride on the struggle bus.
After reliving the missed opportunity and how close the geese were, we waited on the next flock. Which didn't take too long, within a matter of minutes we were working yet another flock in for Jake. When the were close enough right out in front Jake sat up and put his last goose down... I can't remember if it took 1 or 2 shots, but at least we finished.
I felt pretty good knowing I'm not the only one that rides the struggle bus from time to time.
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