Last week and Last week

Last Week: part 1

Well, Monday Jake and I had plans to go out to one of my properties. He gave me a call in the a.m. and had to cancel so I just decided to be lazy. It turned out to be a good day to be lazy as the sun decided to pop out after only a couple hours of clouds. With Tuesday and Wednesday also looking to be sunny I basically took the whole week off, until Thursday that is. We were suppose to be getting some weather on Thursday so I had to get out and give 'er a try. 

I hunted with my ears (eye's closed ears open) for most of the morning, with very little to report except for the 18 degree high. It turned out to be a pretty long day until afternoon. Closer to 1pm I heard a goose honk behind me. I gave a little hooty-hoo on the old goose horn and didn't hear anything back so I decided to lift my head to check my surroundings, and low and behold I had 15 more decoys in my spread and they were alive. So after a brief course of action meeting in my head I sat up, flushed the flock and was able to drop 2. 

Since there was weather that was suppose to come in, I wanted to get picking up and going by 2:30 which was around when this pic was taken. Notice the absence of blinding snow. 

 

By the time I made my first decoy trip out, the storm hit. It was literally like a wall of snow and ice blowing in from the East. After I got loaded and on my way everything in my trailer was snow covered and I was soaked. I drove home between 40-60 mph partially because of white out and partially because of slick roads.

The good news is I got super good gas mileage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Needless to say I didn't make it home until 5:45 and didn't get to bed until 6:45 -ie no blog entry. The things a waterfowler will do just for a chance at a bird still baffles my mind.

Last Week: part 2

With this being the last week of goose season I looked at the weather and decided to hunt every day, except Jeffday, only because I too need a rest day, and after yesterday I was whooped.

All three days I hunted in town, Monday was non eventful, I'm pretty sure the birds new my game out there. I burnt it out pretty good, I think out of the dozen times I hunted there I set up the same way at least 6 of them. With the high of 10 degrees and birds not really wanting to work, all I really got on Monday was alot of sleep which was wonderful. 

I left the house in the dark and made it home in the dark.

Tuesday was a late day due to sunshine, I got to my spot at 3. This spot is a late season spot and it holds birds, as soon as I got there I busted out 75-100 birds of which one stayed to add to my spread. After a couple hours I had a flock come in silent, while I was watching some ducks. I dropped 2 to fill my limit for the day, I only had another half hour to hunt, so it was another long day.

Yeah my hat may look goofy but it sure keeps my head and ears warm.

 Yesterday I was back in town running a little traffic. I haven't seen geese on this property all year but with the impending snow moving in I thought it would be my best chance at a limit, because they were in the area. The first thing I had to do was get the spread out, so I drove down the lane and made trips out with decoys. It was too snowy for the wheeler so I had to run decoys old school. When I was done with the decoys I had to drive to the end of the lane and turn around. Well, it seems the tracks I was following were made by a truck that was not hauling a 7x16 double axle trailer. Needless to say I tested out 4hi, 4lo and my shovel, after an hour I was able to park the truck and head out to the blind for some much needed rest the hunt. I had some geese moving all day but it really got interesting around 2, the snow was predicted around 3 so the geese started getting up and moving. I had my first flock that I called over and was going to do it around 2:30. I say was because I never let them set up like I should have, as soon as they were close enough I shot...... and missed, maybe. I had one goose soar off 400 or so yards and go down. Off I go to try and get that goose, as soon as I got to within 50 yards he took off. So I started back to the blind, it was snowing pretty good now, halfway back I watched 75 or so geese drop into my set. With the blinding snow in my favor I stayed on the lane and walked like I was going to pass the geese and my set. When I got a little past my set and had a favorable shot angle, I turned and walked tword the geese which were now all watching me. When the flock got up I managed to put 2 down. I stuck it out until sunset, however when I picked up I used the wheeler and boat on the lane instead of running the risk of getting stuck again. 

 The weird thing about this year is, of all my properties I have to hunt, I only had geese on 3 of them. So, I had to hit them alot if I wanted to keep putting feathers on the ground. In years past I have been able to move around more so the geese didn't get wise to the game, but not this year.

The only sad thing is I went another year without a band

and I didn't get any bonus geese this year either.

 Somebody got lucky this year but it wasn't me..... they were my properties... but it wasn't me..😢

And that's how my goose season 2020 ended, all in all I had a really good year with some really good friends and I was able to put alot of meat in the freezer.

For the rest of February..... watch out coyotes....😈