So last week I made the trip out to the in-laws, with hopes of finding a few good shoots to satisfy that urge.
Rugersingle was making his annual pilgrimage south, and my family was set to arrive later on Friday.
I took a tour around my usual haunts seeing a few birds, but a lot of the country was pretty dry and with low water comes early ice, and ice we had.
I finally with an hour and a half of light left found this shoot.
We set a plan after permission was granted to hunt this field Saturday morning. along would be myself, Rugersingle, My Daughter Jenna (her first bird shoot), and Pit Boss, my son was along to take in the preceedings, and later tell us how we screwed up.
Saturday came with sideways snow and a wicked Northwest wind.
I left Jenna Pit Boss and Rugersingle in the blind for the first few vollies, and at the crack of dawn a nice single Canada circled, and eventaully did a touch and go in the decoys, Jenna turned to Rugersingle and said "How's this safety work again"(used to single shot hammer type guns)
So with one very lucky goose leaving the decoys a group of 6 locked onto the spred, and as they lowered their feet for landing a series of shots rang out, and a lone goose fel to the ground. WT I thought, i walked over from the wellsite where i was sitting to find Rugersingle cursing his auto loader shotgun for not functioining past the first shot.
After a few more vollies from that group I sent Rugersingle to the wellsite and took over in the blind, Jenna and I managed some 4 more geese, and 11 ducks, when it was all said and done.
Then mother nature took a turn for the worst the winds shifted, and on Saturday night into Sunday morning a lot of the open water froze over, driving birds elsewhere, and resulting in a skunked set up on Sunday morning.
Rugersingle and I toured around Sunday trying to find some open water and finally we found some, along with it a great pile of birds. We watched amazed as about 3000 geese and 4000 ducks dumped into a somewhat secluded stubble field. We enquired at a near by house as to who owned it and alas we were provided with contact information with very detailed directions to the renters residence, only to descover no one home. Afterall it was the Thanksgiving day weekend.
We sat and watched birds dump into this field for 2 full days repeatedly calling and stopping by the renters house, still no one was home, we met more neighbors all indicating that it would probably be ok if we wnet in as the renter was always amicable towards hunters. Something knawed at me on this one, the land owner lived in Edmonton, and the property was the only one in the locale with No Trespassing signs.
Finally on Tuesday morning we met up with the renters son who was doing chores on his dad's place. He explained the onwer did not want others hunting the property as he himself hunted it and the indication to this was hard and fast. Thank god I trusted my gut and not the neighbors words.
Off we went looking once more.
We did find some geese (500) in a stubble field a short drive from our last spotted field, and were granted permission from the very same person who was renting the other property. We set up for an evening shoot and with the temperature dropping steady all day we bundled up into the blind and waited, about 40 geese returned to the field that evening and we manged to drop only 3 of them, mounting and swinging a shotgun while looking like the Michilin man is not nearly as fun as it sounds.
Finally we solicted the help of my wifes cousin Kenny. who took us to a large lake I'd never been to before, it had open water and it had birds, lots and lots of birds, the geese were mostly snows which were feeding on a slightly distant stubble field, but a pea field right next to the lake had ducks piling into it like nobodies business.
We smply set up on the fence next to the road, and as the ducks plunged into the field almost into the ditch we dropped 11 of them.
We returned to the same field the next morning and set up the decoys , and waited, most of the ducks had decided something more to the west was to there liking and simply passed us by. A lone Canada plunged into the blocks and was promptly droped, and at about 11:00 am while picking up from a rather frustrating morning a pair of ducks sucked in, and a hasty rush to the shot guns put those two in the bag as well.
Then on Friday morning we found some of the worlds most brain dead geese. they were feeding in a pea field, and had put them selves smack dab on the fence line, and the road ditch there was about 500 of them, and as vehicles drove by the ones closest to the road simply walked about 10 feet into the field then walked back to the ditch soon after the road cleared of traffic.
We stopped at the land owners house asked and were granted permission, we simply drove the block, stopped about 300yds short of the fence, got into the ditch walked up to the fence, and mad like they did in WWI and went over the top, we let the first geese lift and promptly dropped 9 geese on 6 shots.
We had one last shoot that evening a small nook and cranny stubble field not far from the river, we had spotted some 300 or so geese there tha morning, and after a bit of phone tag, perminant and lasting permission was granted, we set up and waited, we had only 9 geese come back to the field, in two bunches, Rugersingle had a dismal evening missing some in your face sort of shots, I on the other hand managed 2 geese and one duck.
Here a few nice photos from our week.
Rugersingle pondering the evenings lack of birds.
The Pit Boss measuring up to a very large Canada. At 4'8" tall the Pit Boss is sort of dwarfed by the gooses wing span.
It was an awesome week, even though Mother Nature kept switching winds, and throwing some nasty weather our way.
Great times with good friends always leave fond memories.
A Week of Waterfowling (with pics)
Just means I'll be hunting local ruffies up here with Zippo !
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