only 1 week left

 I headed out to the same field that I've been hunting what seems like all season. The geese where there on Monday afternoon when I scouted, so I made the phone calls and let the landowner know I would like to hunt. He got back to me around 10pm, I found the permission the next morning. So I got loaded up and headed to town, as usual I was running a little late. So I stopped for coffee and a slice of Casey's breakfast pizza. By the time I got set up it was already around 8am. I had a couple 4 packs come around but had no interest in playing the game. 

Finally a couple hours later I had a flock coming in from behind me start their final approach. I had a train track no more than 20 yards behind me and when the geese started to commit a train was passing behind me🤬. Well needless to say they didn't like that and flared off and landed a little over 100 yards away. Well I kept talking to them very sparingly and finally they got up, they weren't going to land but one got a little too close to me and he was the first one I added to my spread. 

So 1 down 4 to go.

An hour after that it seems they were getting a little restless, and I had some small groups passing here and there. I spotted a flock right on the deck a couple hundred yards out, I hit 'em hard hoping to change their minds. They were looking for a place to go down and didn't seem like they wanted to fly all the way to me, they landed a little over 90 yards out. Again I just kept talking to them a little bit letting them know how much fun my spot was. Well, pretty soon all their heads were up and talking and then they were lifting off in my direction. I thought they were going to do the same thing the last flock did and just give me a passing shot, but they started to set up to land on my far right. I waited until they were in range and....

       Have you heard of the 3 shot challenge? That's where you take 3 birds for 3 shots, well.....

Shot #1 I dropped the far right bird, #2 I dropped the bird to his left, and shot #3 I shot at a pair right in front and dropped 'em both before they got out of range. 👍

Yep, that's right I did the 3 shot challenge and dropped 4 birds to complete my limit.

Taking limit in such a glorious fashion, one would think I would've been stoked right?? Well, I was, but you see I had my gopro set up and had been trying to get some footage of the hunt. I had 7 recordings on the gopro prior to any shots and it seemed like as soon as the shooting started I completely forgot to hit record. So I didn't even get my 4 bird limit shots on video...... very sad. 🤷

Anyway, limits a limit I guess... 

Weather looks not too good for next week but I'm sure I'll hunt at least 2 of the days.🤞🤞🤞🤞

Holy snow.....

 I'm going to start off by saying,"I haven't seen this much snow in years". 

The sun made a very long showing everyday this week, so I ended up going coyote hunting. I didn't go down south, I stayed up around me. I hunted from sunnup til about 2ish, when I started it was 9 degrees, and heated up to a balmy 16 degrees. Needless to say I shed clothes like crazy and just walked slow. Speaking of the snow.... I really only wanted about 2-4 inches to hang around for the season. I've got around 6-8 and where it's been drifting it's easily about to my knees. Not sure how much is down south but I'll find out next week. I really hope it hasn't pushed all my geese out. 

Anyway, back to this week I didn't get, or even see a coyote, but I did get the scouting done that I wanted to get done.

I did see this....

and found this.... 

Either that's one massive buck or a fork acting big in front of his friends. 🤷

Yep, so I got some exercise and intel for this spring. I'll head south after work on Sunday and see if I can hunt geese this week, or do I have to hunt coyotes....

 

I knew this would happen..... Bad

 As it turns out Wednesday was going to be my best day to hunt. So I made the appropriate calls and headed out in the AM with thoughts of heavy clouds, temps in the 20's, and snow squalls in the near future, dancing in my head. I set up a good snow spread with 2 dozen sleeper shells and around that many full bodies, along with my snow blind and I was set. 

All I had to do now was wait..... and wait.... and...

After the sun came up and was moving into mid morning this happened.

With that glowing ball in the sky I knew it would be an all day sit... so I took a nap. When I woke up I had some decoys to pick up that the gusts had blown over. I started looking around and began to worry I wasn't going to be able to stay. When I finally threw in the towel my beautiful snow covered field looked like this. 

I looked like a white turd in a field, so I packed it in and headed North.

 

On the way home I realized that this was my first skunk of the year... or was it?🤔

Either way it was Bad, but I didn't have to clean a goose....  

I didn't take this pic yesterday, I just really like it, it is the same field though.

I think I was lazy.....

 Not sure why I didn't put out a post last week, but here it is. 

I've been staying on the same field last week and this week and looks like next week too. That being said I didn't get limit because the wind was horrible I had to keep picking up decoys, and you can only do that sooo long before you throw in the towel.

Yesterday myself and Jake went out in 40 degree weather and after he left at 11am the polar votex reared it's snowy head. The wind blew, temperature dropped and the snow showed up. All but the wind was not a factor, it was steady at 10-15... which wasn't bad. The gusts though... holy cow, it would go from nice hunting weather to straight white out, not being able to see more than 5'.

That was taken right before it hit.

It seems like all the geese showed up in the worst of the storm. I couldn't even see them land on the other side of the field, which is where they seemed to want to be anyway.

I did have a flock come over me and even though they wanted to be with the others on the other side of the field, 1 of them did it absolutely perfect.... sorry to say he didn't make it. 1 shot 1 kill.

It was a good time and a beautiful day, I started breaking the spread down around 3 only because I hadn't seen or heard a goose in a while. Of course par for the day, as soon as I got halfway between the spread and the wheeler a flock came out of nowhere and made a B line for the spread, circled once and flew off. 😡

Oh well, I got everything loaded and headed North, which is where the storm was coming from. I just took my time, no rush, no hurry.

Really good day.