We rolled out of town bright and early and found ourselves set up about 30 minutes 'til shooting time. Had 8 guys today and were hoping that there would be 24 in the bag when we left. We stood around and slowly sipped some coffee as we reminisced about days gone by. Days when you could count on sitting in the Ditch in Middle October and the only thing keeping you from taking home a limit of Gaddy's or Wigeon was your shooting ability. Seems like we're a ways from that right now. After exchanging pleasantry's and evacuation of coffee we jumped in. Not many sounds early on, and very little action. We sat around for quite some time wondering just when the traffic would start. Got a phone call from DukMaster about 7:40 wondering if anything was going on. "Nothing yet, probably about 8:10" was the response. "Well call me back at 8:11." Here comes the first group of 5, coming from our right, just over the horizon. They passed in front, a bit tall, swung behind, got a bit further out on the swing-back and then down they go. Yep that was easy. Just kidding, down they go about 75 yds off the mark. Here it comes. The over thinking! While we were all relatively quiet about where those birds just set down, you could pretty much hear all the hamster wheels turnin'. Did we miss, what didn't they like, should we have called more, flagged less, called less, flagged more...the possibilities are endless! Should we walk them off, should we send the dog, should the guy closest throw a couple warning shots their way? Then a few honks from the South quickly averted our attention, from the wandering/feeding geese already down, to the sky. Never mind the group 75 yds away, these baby's are gonna play. Sure enough they did, don't know how many we dropped, but the action from that point on was fast and furious. Didn't pick up a single bird until we thought we were done. After 3 groups of hard approaching and decoying birds we picked 'em all up and had 19. Still 5 to go. Had more birds coming as we were lining up the carnage so we hopped back in for round 4. A bit of a tougher shot this time and we only grounded 3. That's 22, we're almost home. Oh and by the way, after 19 two guys put the guns down and began filming the rumble in the jungle. So we got 20-21-22 on film. Only two left. We had a 14 yr old with us today, as we almost always do, and we decided to put all the guns away except his. The last two he was gonna have to shoot, didn't matter how long we had to stay. Next bunch was a group of 5, belly up about 30 yds in front of him. Three shots and dumped 2, just hammered the first one and had to chase the 2nd one down a bit. Got those on film too! That's all she wrote. We started shooting about 7:45 and were done by 8:15. Fast and Furious may be a bit of an understatement. Remember that phone call from DukMaster? Little did we know that just 4 minutes after 8:11 we would be done and ready to pack up. Truly a great morning.
Birds 20-22 are on video below. Please keep your laughter to a minimum. We didn't hire anyone to film and certainly no one to call. But hey, proves that what sounds good to the human ear, doesn't necessarily sound good to a goose. You can't learn to call like that on stage! That's good-hard-aggressive-feet down- shoot 'em in the eye goose calling derived from years of watching and listening to geese call in the wild. And for all who are wondering, yes these are more than likely local geese mixed with early migrants. The NRCS USDA Wetland Reserve Program doesn't pay $3300/acre (or more) to develop wetlands that don't hold local birds, or stop early migrators. Hunt 'em when you can - where you can.
That's all for now, the migration will start soon. Check back for the latest and greatest and thanks for all the hits.
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