Goose Hunt (continued)

We went back and sat inside the blind in hopes that we may get another set of birds to come in, I was praying that we would so my friend could get another chance at his first goose.  About forty five min later we saw a fairly large jag of geese out on the horizon, at first we thought nothing of it, two min later however those specks were growing at an ever increasing speed.  I remember thinking to myself “please let these birds be it”.  My dad and myself began calling and flight split into two, half stayed on the course that they were on, while the other half veered off sharply to the right (our left) and started heading right for our spread of decoys.  I once again pulled up my shot gun onto my knees to get ready to shoot.  Then, perhaps out of sheer excitement, my friend jumped out of the blind to shoot.  The birds were still out of the Seventy yard range of my shotgun, however at this point it was all or nothing because they had already seen us.   I fired three times, they were just too far to hit.  The excitement wore off quickly and we realized that he and I jumped out too early.  As we walked back into the blind, the question of whether or not we would get another chance was running through both our heads.  No one spoke for about fifteen minute, then my friend spoke up and said “man, I’m sorry for jumping out so early”.  I instantly replied, I said that “It’s alright, it happens to everyone, I’ve done it to”.  I told him about the first time I jumped out early “I had gone goose hunting with my dad and one of my uncles; we had called in a jag of geese, just like my dad and I had earlier that day, they came in, I ran out of the blind, I shot, missed”.  It was one of the more embarrassing things I’ve ever done. 

            The rest of the day was really slow; geese usually fly between 7 am and 10 am and it was now 10:30 and no one had heard or seen birds for the past 45 minutes.  My friend was still wired from his 5 hour energy shot earlier that morning I decided to take a nap while he sat up and watched for geese.  Eleven thirty came around and we still hadn’t had any geese come within more than two miles of us.  I had planned to try to get out of there by 12:00 because I had set up to drive down state later that afternoon, I decided to stay till one though just to try to get my friend one more chance at getting his bird. 

            12:30 rolled around, still no sightings of geese.  It was getting late, my dad and I made the call to pack up.  While he left to go get the truck, which we had stashed under some trees, my friend and I started to pack up the decoys.  No sooner had we walked out into the field , than a jag of geese appeared above the tree line in front of us.  We stopped what we were doing and went over to the front of the blind.  Crouched down, I started to call and the geese began to come down then, they cut away just as quickly as they had appeared.  The big black Chevy Silverado had appeared in the fields.  There was no chance at getting any birds in now. 

            As we packed up two more sets of geese came up over the tree line and instantly veered off to the right.  It’s funny how hunting works like that.  Any time you have failed to limit out it seems like the skies open up right around when you’re leaving.  I always leave wondering “what if we had stayed fifteen more minutes?  Would we be going home full”.  Every time I have to tell myself that the line has to be drawn somewhere and maybe next time we’ll stay that extra fifteen minutes.   

Goose Hunt

This past weekend one of my friends, my dad and myself went out to one of out friends farms to goose hunt.  We had to wake up at 3:00 am so that we would be able to arrive in the field with an hour to spare before shooting time.  It was about 28 degrees out so the cold weather gear was all brought out the night before, along with the shotguns, decoys, buckets, ammunition and camo netting.  It was my friends first time goose hunting so he was all excited for the trip, he probably asked me upwards of 20 times if we were “for sure” going up until that Saturday.                                     

            We arrived at the fields at about 5:00 and proceded to drive down a dirt road through a tree line to a small pond.  We weren’t exactly sure where we were going to hunt that morning because the fields that we usually hunt had been turned and disked.  This pushes all of the food underneath the soil and the birds usually won’t land there.  We parked the truck next to the pond and got out to take a look around.  All that was around was cattails and ice, not the best land to goose hunt over, so we got back in the truck and drove around the property some more.  We ended up finding some bean fields.  One of them had a really high, flat spot.  We decided that if we were going to have any chance at getting some geese to come down on us, this would be the spot. 

            Myself and my friend unloaded the truck and set up our gear and weapons in a small open area under some brush (the field backed right up against some woods).  We then went to retrieve our goose decoys that were stashed under an old semi tractor trailer. 

            It took about an hour to assemble and place all of the decoys, about 70 in all, and the sun was starting to show light as we were climbing back into the blind. 

            Nothing happened for about the first hour or so, but as the light started to come up over the trees we began to see geese way off in the distance.  My dad and myself had been in situations before where we say geese all day but never had them come close enough so shoot so we didn’t get over excited about seeing birds, but it was better than seeing nothing.  We gave a few calls just to make our presence known if there were any birds within ear shot that just weren’t calling but fifteen minutes later there was still nothing.  Then, way off to our right, we saw two geese flying around, we started calling and they immediately hooked to their left towards us, we were in business.  I pulled my shotgun up on top of my knees and started blowing away on the goose call, the birds started dropping lower, lower, lower, coming closer with each second.  When they were within 250 yards, I dropped the calls and grabbed my shotgun.  What seemed like a life time was probably only fifteen seconds.  They entered the outer edge of my shooting range of seventy yards.  That may seem far to some people but I was shooting high 3-1/2 in BBBs and had a full choke in the gun.  I waited anyway for them to break the forty yard barrier, as they did their feet dropped down and wings spread and back pedaled my friend and I exploded out of the brush.  The birds flared, I shot once hit but no kill, then I shot again, one bird dropped.  The other bird was on its way out and about to pass the seventy yards, I shot…missed.  My friend’s gun had jammed after the first shot so he was screwing around with the action.  I was still watching the bird that got away and decided to start calling, just in case.  Just as my dad told me to quit it, the bird hooked back, it was the coolest thing I have ever seen.  I yelled for everyone to get back against the trees as I pulled two BBB shells off of the butt of my gun.  My dad and I started to blow away on the calls, nobody moved as the bird came in closer, we were fully exposed up against the tree line.  The bird came past seventy yards, then came into about sixty.  I jumped up out of the brush and shot, I winged the bird and when it hit the ground it started to run but we had my dog on it before it could get very far.

(To Be Continued)