Fiasco
Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 8:29 pm
So as many of you know, last night my hunting partner bailed on me while I was on my way to go scouting. Already irritated, I went out anyways hoping to find some birds to at least piece together a hunt. Turns out I did find a pretty good feed of snows, mallards and a handful of canada geese. Land was posted, luckily I have built a decent relationship with this farmer and after a quick phone call permission was granted. The only stipulation was that I do not drive into the field, well that's not the best news but it is certainly not the worst either. After much deliberation and knowing snow geese habits I decided to cut them off and hunt 1 field closer to the roost. My reasoning for this was that there were enough geese using that field that I thought maybe they would eat the field out and move on to other food sources. Earlier in the year I had seen canadas using this field and opted to just use my canada goose decoys, and I could drive into this field which is always a plus for me. Well my predictions were wrong, horribly wrong.
So morning comes and I pull into the field. Off in the distance I see white specks flying like mosquitos and soon realize that those specks were in fact geese. Little did I know that the geese were using the sheet water in this field as a roost. Awesome, just awesome I thought to myself. Well it can't get much worse so I decide to set up anyways and hope for the best. In a little under an hour I set up 8 doz bigfoot fullbody decoys and the hunt started soon after that.
Shooting time came and the mallards just started pouring into this field. I had my limit of 5 in a little under 15 minutes, I then spent the rest of the hunt chasing decoys across the prairie. The winds today were 15-30 with gusts to 45, not ideal situations for using fullbody decoys in a flat field. Well now the geese get off a distant roost and head to the field they were in last night. With snow geese you need to practice patience. I knew it would only be a matter of time before they fed that field out and would be on the hunt for more food. So I held tight and waited, and waited, and waited until finally off in the distance I see a flock of snows locked up and committed to my decoys. After a barrage of sounds from my goose call I convinced them to give me a look. I took 2 geese out of that flock and not too afterwards, more and more birds started coming. I got 2 canada geese to come over and I landed both of them in the decoys and managed to shoot one of them. Lastly, a trio of snows comes over and I pull up and shoot all 3 of them. I looked at my days take of 3 snows, 1 ross, 1 blue, 1 canada and 5 mallards and decided that was enough.
The days bag
This is my decoy trailer. I can fit 8 doz bigfoots, 4 FA Sport Utility Blinds, rakes, shovels and flags in there comfortably
Spread pictures
I seen this after I was in the truck and kind of chuckled. Looked like I committed a mass murder.
So morning comes and I pull into the field. Off in the distance I see white specks flying like mosquitos and soon realize that those specks were in fact geese. Little did I know that the geese were using the sheet water in this field as a roost. Awesome, just awesome I thought to myself. Well it can't get much worse so I decide to set up anyways and hope for the best. In a little under an hour I set up 8 doz bigfoot fullbody decoys and the hunt started soon after that.
Shooting time came and the mallards just started pouring into this field. I had my limit of 5 in a little under 15 minutes, I then spent the rest of the hunt chasing decoys across the prairie. The winds today were 15-30 with gusts to 45, not ideal situations for using fullbody decoys in a flat field. Well now the geese get off a distant roost and head to the field they were in last night. With snow geese you need to practice patience. I knew it would only be a matter of time before they fed that field out and would be on the hunt for more food. So I held tight and waited, and waited, and waited until finally off in the distance I see a flock of snows locked up and committed to my decoys. After a barrage of sounds from my goose call I convinced them to give me a look. I took 2 geese out of that flock and not too afterwards, more and more birds started coming. I got 2 canada geese to come over and I landed both of them in the decoys and managed to shoot one of them. Lastly, a trio of snows comes over and I pull up and shoot all 3 of them. I looked at my days take of 3 snows, 1 ross, 1 blue, 1 canada and 5 mallards and decided that was enough.
The days bag
This is my decoy trailer. I can fit 8 doz bigfoots, 4 FA Sport Utility Blinds, rakes, shovels and flags in there comfortably
Spread pictures
I seen this after I was in the truck and kind of chuckled. Looked like I committed a mass murder.