Late Goose is over

Late goose ended last week on the 15th of Feb. Today I was going to go coyote hunting but the weather had other plans for me. So I thought I would catch up on my house work i.e.- put my decoys up for the year, and catch up on my blog.
Last week proved to be yet another tough hunt, I hunted the 14th and 15th. On the 14th I really had no good spot picked out to field hunt, and I didn't have any birds anyway, so I did some pass shooting. I was only out for a couple hours and got one goose. The bad thing was the goose landed on the snow covered ice. I had already thought ahead for this problem, and brought my fishing pole/ goose getter with me. What I didn't plan on was the weight of the goose and the drag across the snow breaking my line. So after a trip to the house to get a pole strung with 30# test braid I laid hands on my prize.

The lucky thing was that I didn't hook my goose with the second line. I actually hooked the weight from my first gang rig. Lucky I wasn't there all nite.
The last day of season I went to a field that I hadn't hunted all year. I checked it every week and the geese just never showed up so I never tried it.
With nothing to lose I got set up in the pre dawn hours, and stayed til' just after noon. That's when I started picking up my gear. I got home ate and hung out until 3:30, then I went to my pass shooting spot and waited.
Fortunately it didn't take that long for me to ground the first goose of the day, and not long after that I grounded my last goose of the year.

Even with all the warm weather and getting very few "new" geese I still topped my numbers from last year. I haven't totaled my numbers up yet but that isn't too far in the future. Only a couple weeks until the end of my coyote and fox season and Turkey in April, fishing is just around the corner.

Still Shootin' Geese

Last week I went back to the field that I shot the 3 geese at and pass shot it right before sunset. I only hunted for a couple hours and had a flock come by to roost for the night. I was able to get one goose out of the flock before they were out of range and time had expired. I didn't think that was too bad considering I was only out there for a couple hours with no decoys.

That hunt was on Wed and on Thurs I went West to a property I just got this year. Well when we got to the property Weed realized he had forgotten his blind so I sent him back to my house for my x-tra blind. As I was getting the gear unloaded, the house lights came on. So I went over to talk to the Joe the owner of the property. When I got closer I noticed it was the misses and not Joe at the door. She related to me that Joe had just been diagnosed with lung cancer and was not expected to last the week, and they had all kinds of family coming over to say their final goodbye's.
After hearing what was going on I told her that I won't stay and clog up their drive. She never even asked me not to hunt, as a matter of fact she kept apologizing, they are really nice people. I just found out yesterday that Joe passed on Sat.
So after moving on from the spot I was going to hunt, I moved down the road to another property I have. Tom's property has always been good to me, however with the wind coming in the way it was I knew I had alot of work ahead of me. I called Weed to let him know what was going on, and then started hauling gear the couple hundred yards to the end of the field. Well after seeing 12 geese in the morning, a couple doubles and a flock of 6, nothing flew until right before sunset.

So as you can see the action was fast and furious for a couple minutes. I got home around 9:30 that evening, threw my gear in the house, cleaned my goose and got to bed so I could get some sleep for work the next morning.

It would be sooo much easier on me if I didn't have to go to work the next morning.

Late season Goose has begun

 With Wednesday Feb 1st being the season opener and since my trolling motor got fried. I was forced to finish this years goose season on land.
       -late season like early season allows 5 geese a day-
With the weather staying warm our geese just haven't come down. So we're forced to hunt the same stale birds that have been around town all winter. Now that doesn't mean that you can't still get birds. It just means that you have to work a little harder to take some feathers home. 
Last week I hunted a field that I have hunted 3 other times without even firing a shot.
Well all that changed, I also learned that this particular field is a bad weather or afternoon field hunt only. Now the reason I say that is the only geese I could actually work came in afternoon. I shot 2 geese between 5 and 5:20pm, the only other goose I got was shot in the morning. Every flock that came over during the day just didn't want to play the way they did later in the day.
I left the house at 6ish and didn't get home until 8:30 pm, as a matter of fact I was informed I only had another half hour before Sarah called the cops to go look for me. It was worth it since I got to burn some powder and left the field with some geese.

Only 2 short

Goose is winding down

So what do you do when waterfowl starts winding down? Well you find something else to hunt, I chose to go after some fur, namely coon.
Since last week I have been out on 2 nite hunts and one daytime hunt. The first nite hunt didn't net me anything, I didn't even see a set of eyes. The first daytime hunt grounded 1 coon with 2 more just peekin' out of their den trees.

Last nite my buddy Nick and I went out on a full moon for a coon hunt. Now I have never done well on a full moon, last nite was a good change of luck. Nick thinks it was all him, and to tell you the truth I won't argue cause we brought home a coon apiece. Unfortunately we didn't have any come into the call, we saw ours spying from the treetops.

I took these pics with my old camera (I left my new one at home)

 

 

Nick with his coon

Next week goose opens for a couple days, I will get to hunt one of the days. Then it's probably coon til the end of the month, late goose comes in for the first 2 weeks of Feb.
Then it's all done til next year. So sad.   : (

Hunting slump is over

For the past couple of weeks my hunting and more to the point shooting has been lacking. It seems that when I have had shots I just couldn't seal the deal. Whether the geese were too far, or the coons just wouldn't come out of their tree, or I just plain missed.
The last couple of weeks have been a testament to my fortitude, due to the simple fact that I have come home empty handed and still managed to go out the next day to try my luck.
Well yesterday, that all changed for the better. I was hunting the river and had a flock of geese come in early, long story short I ran her dry with not a feather to show for my efforts. I thought they might be out just a little far out so I changed to my full choke and settled back to wait for the next flock. Fortunately it didn't take too long, I worked 'em in with dare I say some skill and then took my shots. I had 1 goose fall, after unloading on the flock I got up to untie the boat and go get my prize. I almost made it past my decoys when I found out my motor wasn't working. So I hopped out and drug the boat back to the bank and looked at the motor. I noticed that it looked just like an electric motor - I am not a motor repairman. My best guess is that the water in the prop had froze solid due to the cold weather. Since the motor wouldn't run I figured it was time to go, so I started picking up my decoys. I kept an eye on the goose the entire time, with the wind was pushing him across the water and I thought he would end up on the far shore.  
Wrong, he ended up on the opposite shore against the dam. I looked under the dam and noticed he couldn't make it over. I figured I would have to walk my boat and gear back along the shoreline. It took about a half hour but I made it back to the landing, loaded my boat and headed for home. When I got to the house I threw all my gear in the house, grabbed my fishing pole got in the car and headed back to the river. On my way I called one of my buddies that lives on the river and told him the whole story. Come to find out he had a key to the gate leading into the dam. So we met at the gate, went down to the dam and found my goose just outside of the wing of the dam.

 I have not checked my motor to see if it was just froze, but I really hope that's all it was.