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)
No comments:
Post a Comment