Kids day in the Goose Blind

Over the Thanksgiving holiday we had a chance to take the kids out for a goose hunt.  Busch Pilot,  Bubba and his two sons James and Jared, my son Brendan,  my Daughter Kaleigh and of course me all made the early morning trek to the farm with hopes of cupped and committed honkers dancing in our heads.

Hero Shot - The smiles are the best reward

The kids were eager to help with building our blind, which would be located at the end of a hedgerow, and then setting out 3 dozen Big Foot full bodies and 2 dozen shells which would hopefully pull the geese in for some up close and personal shooting.  We construct the blind every morning we hunt this farm so we have it down to a science and could probably whip it out in mere minutes, but we wanted the kids to have a hand in every aspect of the hunt so they were banging in stakes, hanging the burlap and stacking up the corn stalks and I must say they made a great little blind.  The wind was blowing from all directions and was supposed to be coming out of the Northwest so we set the spread hoping that would be the case.

Yes Jared is standing up - had to have him raise his hand

It was just starting to get light as we were settling into the blind and started giving the kids some safety and shooting instructions and we were greeted with a flock of turkeys yelping always as they were getting ready to fly down for their roosts.  All this turkey talk was helping with the kids paying attention, but we ran them through a test run to give them an idea of what was going to happen.  You know the drill, keep your heads down, don't move, ready, take em.  The test run ran smooth so all we needed now was some geese to cooperate.





It wasn't long before we had geese in the air, but they were on a mission to go somewhere other then to our field so we just kept watching flock after flock off in the distance.  I was beginning to worry, but that worry was washed away as a flock of geese broke over the tree line and were keyed in on our spread.  Busch Pilot and Bubba worked their magic on the calls, while I manned the video camera.  The geese flew right over the  hedgerow and our blind, made a loop out over the field and turned to line up for a run at our spread.  They were cupped and committed and started to land but they flaired off short of the spread and headed out.  We tried to get them turned around but they just headed out.  We were not sure what they saw, but we would be keeping an eye on that.  The next flock to work the spread did almost the same thing and were committed to the spread at the end of the blind and they too flaired just short of the landing, but Busch Pilot called the shot and our first goose was down.  Busch Pilot and I decided to move some decoys around and clear out more of a spot in front of the blind to see if it made a difference and most certainly did as the next flocks to visit did exactly what we wanted them to do.

Bubba and James being good retrievers

We had a single come in next that got folded by both Jared and James who shot at the exact same time.  There was plenty of hoots and laughs after that one.  Then another flock that the kids dropped two from, but one got up and started heading out so Brendan went to put it down but he had forgotten to reload so as we watched the goose head down the field, bubba and James headed after it.  The goosed crashed into the trees and was recovered by James.  We had another flock just touching down a mere feet from the blind and Busch Pilot called the shot and the kids stood up I think they were in shock at how close they were because only one was dropped from that bunch.  It was about 10am so we decided to pack it up and head home.

Don't tell Bubba's wife, but we stole her Golden Goose!

You can get a college kid to do just about anything.

We worked him hard.

It's tiring being a goose hunter.

Each of the kids got a goose and learned plenty about goose hunting.  They had lots of laughs and seemed to enjoy every minute of it.  I know Busch Pilot, Bubba and Myself sure enjoyed it and we couldn't stop smiling or laughing.  Hope to get them all out there again over the Christmas holiday.  There is nothing I enjoy more then Sharing the Passion with kids, especially my own.