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Goose hunt debut...an experience to remember !

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roundball

Cannon
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09/05/09 My Goose Hunting Debut...an outstanding morning without ever firing a shot!

All the years I’ve hunted I’ve always heard geese get up and get moving some time after first light so I figured I didn’t have to get set up in the dark...got to the little farm about 7:00am and parked on the East side of a small barn near a 2 acre pond where I'd seen them congregate in the past. Set up a blind on the West side of barn, about 40 yards from the edge of the pond, and was settled in by 7:30. For the next 15-20 minutes I had a half dozen horses, a few cows, a rooster and a guinea hen all take turns coming over to figure out what this thing was sitting behind a GI camo net at the end of the barn, but gradually lost interest.

At 7:55 I heard 10-15 quick shots about a mile away southeast where I knew there was a backwater slough off Falls Lake. A few minutes later I began hearing a large noisy flock of geese coming from that direction and eventually a flock of about 50 broke into view over the south end of the farm headed up my way. They flew north, parallel to the long pond right over my head about 50 yards up and the noise was unbelievable, went on past me making a right hand circle out around behind the barn to come back down to turn back into the south end of the pond, settling lower all the time, and eventually the entire flock cleared the trees and slid to a halt on the water right in front of me, 75 yards to the middle of the pond...what a video that would have made.

Interesting to watch and learn this morning...after landing they immediately all regrouped into a bunch as if they were still in the mentality of the single flock formation...but then by 8:30 they had all gradually separated apart into three distinct sub-flocks...and waded out onto the banks around the pond...generally remained as separated groups while working over a sandy / gravely area I assume picking up grit for their gizzards. Then at 9:00, first one sub-flock, then another, and then the other each started getting noisy again and took off to fly 100 yards or so out into the main field where they foraged around until about 10:00...then as if in reverse order, group by group they each got noisy, took off, and flew back to land in the pond again.

They floated around the pond for a while then about 11:00 began wading out, started preening, then a couple started resting with a head under a wing, etc...it had been an interesting show, but I figured that was it for the day, was getting hot and tired, so I stood up to start walking around the barn to my truck. The geese immediately exploded off the banks around the pond all heading north into the breeze, but by the time I got around to the other end of the barn they had turned and were already forming up into a couple layers of V’s, coming back south that would take them down towards Falls Lake.

I stood there and watched them straighten out from the turn, flying right down the dirt path I was parked on, no higher than the roof of the barn...if I’d have had a cane pole I could have jumped up and swatted them. On reflex I started bringing up the smoothbore as any one of them was going to be a ”˜gimme’ but then checked up and decided not to shoot at all. I just stood there and watched these huge noisy geese coming head on towards me...never in my life have I had a such large flock of anything wild come that low right at me...it had already been a very satisfying morning and it struck me that shooting one now would have just spoiled the moment...so I just stood there and soaked it all in as they bored on and went over me...what an experience.
 
:thumbsup: Amen to that R/B. Like some us, you're getting a little older. Once in a while, the most memorable shots are the ones that we didn't take. Welcome to the club.
 
Welcome to waterfowling!--Glad you had a great time!--Half the fun of duck and goose hunting is just spending time where they live. Thanks for sharing.
 
Ancient One said:
Once in a while, the most memorable shots are the ones that we didn't take.

To be honest, for the past couple years I've found myself less and less interested in killing game in general...today's experience might be just another exclamation mark in that line of thinking...
 
makeumsmoke said:
Welcome to waterfowling!--Glad you had a great time!--Half the fun of duck and goose hunting is just spending time where they live. Thanks for sharing.
It was an excellent opportunity to study them from the first sound of their calls at 7:55 through several of their activities until they took flight a few hours later...like spending "a day in the life of a flock of geese"
:)
 
My cousin and I sat and watched hundreds of mallards land in a field behind my house then several more hundred canadian geese after that, no matter how many times I see it, it's always exciting. Only a couple more weeks till opener.
 
roundball said:
Ancient One said:
Once in a while, the most memorable shots are the ones that we didn't take.

To be honest, for the past couple years I've found myself less and less interested in killing game in general...today's experience might be just another exclamation mark in that line of thinking...


Ever notice how many old timers wander down the same path? Even Elmer Keith and Jack Oconnor spent their later years as bird hunters rather than big game hunters.

I'm there, and I think I'm having more fun now than in my days of big scores and lots of them. We've got a 5 month deer season and liberal bag limit, but need only one deer. I could shoot one opening day most years, but then the hunting would be over. Lots more fun to hunt all season long, stalking and everything, but put off dropping the hammer till the last possible day.

I still love hunting and geese are high on my list. But some of the best days occur when there's no gun cleaning come nightfall.

Does that make me less of a hunter?

I say it makes me more of a hunter.
 
Great story RB. Those honkers really make a lot of noise and when they're that close it's a memorable experience for sure. Thanks for sharing. GW
 
Roundball...you surely do have a novelist's skill portraying your thoughts of an interesting day observing geese sitting "on a pond". I enjoyed it immensely and although goose hunting is not one of my "preferred past times", your description and feelings might just as well be typical of the many hunts for other game that many have experienced. Being a "meat hunter" and measuring my success by "game in the bag", doesn't mean that what you described so eloquently, hasn't been appreciated by me and on all my hunts, the ambience of the surroundings, the animals that are not being hunted at the moment and all the non-game animals that appear, all contribute to many wonderful days in territories that are quite unlike the areas that most of us live in. Thanks for your thoughts on "one heck of a day" that you experienced....Fred
 
Great story, it does sound like a morning you'll never duplicate even though you will have a hundred more great mornings if'n you keep after the gooses. I've never been much for migratory waterfowl but always kinda wanted to be. Don't know what it is, but I want to go after ducks with a brown bess. :grin:

Have you tried the tundra swans in January? Farmers along the coast of NC were begging us to come out ten years ago in Currituck County, they should have been charging us.

Thanks for the tale.

:hatsoff:
Spot
 
Spot said:
I've never been much for migratory waterfowl but always kinda wanted to be. Don't know what it is, but I want to go after ducks with a brown bess. :grin:

Have you tried the tundra swans in January? Farmers along the coast of NC were begging us to come out ten years ago in Currituck County, they should have been charging us.

Way back in the 70's I got into duck hunting for a couple years in SC and enjoyed it...moved and never got back into it. Never tried the swans...and to be honest I'm really not into goose hunting as such...it's just that I saw this as a convenient local opportunity to try out this Flint smoothbore on something other than squirrels and crows...was planning to go back again this morning but when the alarm went off at 5:30, my heart just wasn't in it and I slept in :grin:
 
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