Saskatchewan Waterfowl Hunt 2013 - Day 3

We thought it was tough getting to sleep after our first full day of hunting, but last night after an amazing snow goose hunt it was even more difficult.  The sound of snow geese filled my head all night long and made for a restless night which isn't good considering we had another 4am walk up call this morning.

Morning Goose and Duck Hunt October 16

 

Sunrise from the blind

We did something this morning that our outfitter Jeff from Living Sky Outfitters in Bladworth Saskatchewan doesn't like to do unless his scouting tells him to and that is hunt the same field twice in a week.   The soybean field we were headed to during another dark morning ride was the same field we hunted on our first evening duck hunt.  I wasn't that worried about hunting the same spot again, especially after seeing the amount of time, effort and work Jeff, Trevor and his crew puts into scouting.  I knew we'd have a good morning.  Unlike our first night were we had to target ducks, the original game plan was to target large flocks of geese that were using the field the morning before.   It's difficult enough driving these dirty gravel roads in the middle of nowhere in the dark, but our guide Billy had to be on his game as large cow moose stepped out in front of the old brown suburban towing a 17 foot trailer.  It was a good thing Billy was bright eyed and all in because there was a very nice bull moose following the cow.  Cool visual, but a little scary!

You can tell after two days we were in a groove as no one had to say a word, we got out and started the task of unloading the trailer, setting up the A-frame blind and laying out 6 dozen full body goose and duck decoys along with a Mojo or two.  It didn't take us long to get the spread setup, the suburban and trailer parked and all settled in to the blind to enjoy the first cracks of daylight.   My favorite time in the woods, blind or on the water is just as the sun starts to show itself and the wild starts to wake up.  The air seems to change, the sounds get louder and the anticipation grows.  Love it.


The day started out with a good wind, cold in the 20s and an early flight of 4 mallards that dropped in to the spread only to leave unscathed which was mostly by choice even though bubba did let one fly only to miss.  We could hear the snows getting vocal on the roost in the distance as 4 more mallards hooked into the spread.  These four weren't so lucky and they quickly became staying ducks.  The next group of visitors were two dozen Canadian Geese that were low and on a string right to the spread and we knocked a few of them down as well.

That's me

It wasn't long after that till we were covered up in geese and I mean covered up.  Sitting there watching  hundreds of geese working the spread and tolling in making for calling the shot a certain challenge, especially when we had geese on the ground in the spread.  You almost get caught up in the spectacle of it all and forget you still need to make the call to shoot.  Well our guide made the right call and I was fortunate enough to shoot a triple with my Browning BPS pump gun which was a first to me.  I was so damn excited I had to edit out some language in the video.  It truly was a show as they spiraled down out of the sky and into the spread.  After this I'm not sure I really cared if I shot another bird that morning.  How do you top what just happened.  Well you really don't and you soak in ever flight of birds and appreciate the fact that you have the ability to be there doing what you love.

We had another good group of geese work over the spread high and a few even joined the decoys on the ground but they didn't commit.  A small group of 10 broke off and made a swing low off the left corner and we took a few of them.  All that action and the sun wasn't even completely above the horizon.

After the flurry of geese came some small flights of ducks and we worked them over to pick off a few here and there to pass the time while waiting for more geese.  We did manage a few more small flights of geese including a flock about 8 giants that offered up some shooting off the left side of the blind.   We did get to laughing a bit as bubba chased down a running giant goose.  I laughed so hard my side hurt and I had tears in my eyes.  I'd love to bring the dog on a trip like this but then we wouldn't have enjoyed the bubba retriever show.

Not a bad morning considering the X was across the street

We definitely were not on the X today, because as we looked out the back of the blind across the dirt road to another field that was a couple hundred yards away and it was covered in snow geese, canadas and a load of ducks trying to get in.  Watching the ducks work into that field was just incredible.  We decided to stick it out and see if we couldn't scratch out a few more geese which we did, but we came up 6 short of a 5 man limit.  With nothing really moving and birds out on the feed we decided to pack it up and head back for some lunch.

Afternoon Duck Hunt

After a short break to get some lunch at the local bar which by the way had delicious food and specials every day and was priced very reasonable, we were headed back to the field for an afternoon duck hunt.  The weather warmed into the 40s and cloudy but the wind picked up a bit.  We setup the A-frame blind on the edge of a pothole in the brush and we were positioned looking up hill at the spread which consisted of a few dozen full bodies and  a single Mojo.  This setup made for some challenges as the ground wasn't level making standing up a challenge until we flattened things out and adjusted the angle of the  front of the blind.  Not to mentioned that we were sitting lover then the decoy spread by about 15 to 20 feet.   We also had another guide named Ronnie who is a good ol boy from Virgina with us and he definitely got a kick out of or crew.  I think they sent Ronnie along thinking Billy needed help wrangling us in but it really was so Billy could join us for a little hunting of his own.

I call this Where's Bubba?

The ducks starting coming back in pairs and small flocks so we picked away at them and got some good shooting.  The one rule we had was to not drop any birds in the water as our guide billy wasn't in the mood to go wading as usual we didn't listen.  Not really on purpose but those birds flying straight at us had some speed so when they get hit a couple landed in the water.  No worries, Bubba put on the waders and retrieved them up for Billy at the end of the hunt

Afternoon's results where some nice Mallards

Hands full of Greegheads.

The area we hunted was covered in potholes and just about everyone of them had birds on them.  We also saw a some mule deer.  We continued to pick away at singles and doubles while we got plenty of laughs and lots of exercise running up hill to retrieve birds.  It was nice to sit around enjoying a slow but steady hunt and we still managed to fill out our limit of ducks which was a good thing seeing we were eating ducks again for dinner tonight.  Man were they tasty.

A little appetizer of duck before dinner

Gear Used

One thing I used every day so far is my Drake EST Heat-Escape Waterproof Pullover by Drake Waterfowl.  Even though this is an early season piece it is something I find myself wearing even into the late season.  It's comfortable, seems to stop the wind very well and doesn't restrict my shooting that a heavy late season jacket can sometimes do.   For calls, I'm a Buck Gardner guy so I had two of my favorite ducks calls with me in the Buck Brush and Brad's Reactor both Acrylic calls.   The Buck Brush is just a sweet sounding single reed call (they also offer it in a double reed) that gives me everything I need and is easy to blow, plus it is Buck's favorite call so you know it is good.  The Brad's Reactor is a double reed call that has VFR Technology (Volume Flow Reduction) built into the insert which reduces the escaping air and provides more back pressure making for some sweet sounding quacks and you can get really soft with them or nasty.  Your choice.

Things I learned

As fun as being covered up in large numbers of birds is, today's slower paced duck hunt was something we needed as it allowed us to veg a little and have some additional fun in the blind.  After all, time in the blind with friends and family is what makes this sport so special.  I love to deer hunt and do so with my kids and friends, but when you can sit elbow to elbow and tell some tale tales and still kill some ducks, that is a mighty fine day.

Saskatchewan Waterfowl Hunt 2013 - Day 2

We took the easy way out last night and had a pasta dinner with goose and duck sausage which the outfitter provided, salad and some fresh bread and some brownies for dessert.  Talk around the table was loud as each of us tried to put into words what we experienced on day 1 of our hunt with Living Sky Outfitters in Bladworth Saskatchewan.   After cleaning up from dinner and sitting around while we enjoyed a few beverages we finally laid our heads on a pillow and tried to fall asleep.  Easier said then done as I still have images of the skies filled with snow geese and 100+ flights of ducks buzzing our spread.  Not sure when I finally fell asleep, but I do know that our 4am wake up came a little too fast.  Today's game plan was a morning duck hunt with the chance for some dark geese and then an afternoon snow goose hunt.   The crew from Georgia struggled a bit with their shooting on Day 1 during their duck shoot in the AM, but they did make up for it on their snow goose hunt that afternoon.

Day 2 Sunrise

Morning Duck and Dark Goose Hunt October 15.

We woke to temps in the low 20s and frost along with clear skies and no wind.  Waterfowler's don't like those clear no wind kind of days, but we were to make the best of it.   We setup a homemade A-Frame blind just inside some tall brush with a high spot in the bean field about 50 yards from us before the field dropped off and headed down to the wood line.  We setup 6 dozen full body decoys made up of canadas, some giants, mallards and pintails along with a robo duck.  We had the sun at our back and as I mentioned, no wind.


It  didn't take long for the first batch of ducks to buzz our setup only for a few to land amongst the decoys about 5 minutes before legal.  They left before legal with a smaller group that flew by.  No matter, we took that as a good sign.    It wasn't long before we had a small toll of birds that offered up some shooting and even with a little sleep still in our eyes we did manage to knock down a few out of that first flight.  We had ducks work into the spread from the right, from the left and directly from behind us.  When the birds came from behind you could have reached up and grabbed them they were so low and that was so damn cool.

Bubba and Brian with a couple of geese.

Pintail Pete with a couple of giant geese.

We did have a couple of large flights of cacklers swing through and those little guys are as freaking noisy and talkative as snows.  Holy crap are they loud.   We did knock down a couple Specklebelly geese which is a treat as we don't seem them in our flyway.  One of the specks smashed a decoy right at the front of the blind when he dropped from the sky like a wet bag of cement.  There weren't many specks still around but we did see some almost every day.

Smashed decoy being retrieved.

The General makign a great retrieve on a specklebelly.

My first Specklebelly

 The highlight of the day had to be the 4 Giant geese that took a pass at the far edge of the spread and thanks to our Patternmaster tubes we knocked 3 of them down.  The fourth decided to swing back around and fly the same edge and it was also knocked down.  Two unfortunately required another shot but all 4 were recovered and they were massive!

Brian with some ducks

Bubba with arms full of giants!

Day 2 Morning Results

We ended the morning with a limit of 40 ducks consisting mostly of Mallards with a few Pintails mixed in.  We did end up with 6 Giant Canadian geese, 2 specks and 8 cacklers.  We estimated that we had seen over 3,000 ducks and a few thousand geese.

Afternoon Snow Goose Hunt

The whole trip was just incredible but if I had to pick just one part of the hunt to put on the top of the list, this snow goose hunt was it.  We refer to this hunt as Snowmageddon!  We don't get into the snows in our area of Connecticut and every goose hunter has heard the stories about how frustrating it can be to hunt snows, but when it works it is just an incredible sight to see.  Incredible.  Amazing.  Unreal.  There isn't a single word to describe it but I will try my best to do so.

Brian the Goose Ninja ready to go.

We had to get a little earlier start then normal for the afternoon hunt as we had a 850 decoy snow rig to put out which consisted of 8 dozen full body and the rest socks, shells and flyers.  The weather had warmed to the low 50s, still very clear but the wind had picked up to about 15mph.   Our rig was setup in the middle of a cut wheat field that was easily a couple miles square.  Picking the right spot in these large open fields is a challenge and something our guides were damn good at.  After getting the spread out, we put on some white jackets and pants and tucked ourselves in amongst the decoys.  The electronic caller was set out and turned on as well.  The bag limit is 20 white gees per person per day and considering we only shot 30+ the first morning as tens of thousands flew by we weren't to concerned about the limit, just hoping for some fun.

Pintail Pete getting comfortable among the decoys.

After putting out 859+ decoys I'm ready to get busy.

The hunt started out with some small flights on snows checking out the spread as we picked off ones and twos that would just seem to drop out of the sky and try to get in.  This went on for about an hour or so and then the number of flocks and size increased for about 20 minutes and they committed in larger numbers.  The excitement level was extremely high and the laughs loud and smiles wide and bright.  Once it slowed decided we needed an accurate count and we were 40+ birds.

If the hunt had ended we would have been impressed but our guide for the night Jay told us to sit back down because there were still many more flocks to come.  About 20 minutes later you can see flight after flight off birds heading our way and many of these flocks were in the hundreds of birds.  Over the next 30 minutes all chaos broke loose as our guide struggled to call out all the birds that were committing to the spread from all over the place.  We would shoot 5 or 6 that dropped in and the birds above would start there way down as well.  It was fast and furious trying to reload and get your bearings again.  The tears in my eyes from laughing so hard made it a little more challenging but we got it done.  While you were picking out birds to shoot, you had to dodge the ones your buddy shot as they were crashing down on top of you.  I had one land and crush my shell box as I rolled out of of the way.  Bubba had one hit his boot as he was shooting at a different bird.  It was pure mayhem!    We had birds walking amongst the decoys in the spread as more were landing.  One of our guys lost track of a walker and just hammered a full body decoy that flew up int he air about 10 feet and did 3 flips.  That made it even harder to shoot a bird as I was doubled over laughing and crying.

We new we were close to the 100 bird limit at that point and decided to get up and gather up the birds and while doing so the birds just kept coming and coming some even landed as we walked among the spread in our white suits.  Official count was 95 so we called it quits, sat back down and enjoyed the show which continued for about another 20 minutes.  I had birds cruising just feet above my head as I laid there video tapping them and at one point almost had one hit me.

 

GOPRO Footage

Additional Video Footage

After The Hunt Footage

The geese finally stopped coming and we started to pick up as the sun was setting and as I looked back towards the sunset I was amazed at the toll off birds off in the distance that seemed to be setting into the sun itself.  I couldn't imagine a better sight to end an amazing hunt.

 

Sunset Toll~

Gear Used

The A-frame blind we used was home made and made of 8 sections (2 front panels, 2 back panels and 2 ends) of aluminum with a soft mesh covered in grass mats  and brushed in with the local brush from the setup.  It is easy to adjust the angle of the blind as you just changed the angle of each stake on the panels.  We used buckets to sit on as well.  You can never have enough cover and brush on these things and you need to make them look like they belong and it did.   Most of the decoys were from Greenhead Gear with a few different brands mixed in.  We bought ammo from the outfitter when we arrived and it consisted of 4 cases Kent Fast Steel 3inch #2s and one case of 3.5inch BB.  We used all the 3inch #2s and returned about 6 boxes of the BB's as we didn't really need them.  The giants shot during the morning hunt were taken with 3inch #2s.  The BB's might have saved us a chase or two though.  The Kent shells seemed a little dirty along with the dust bowl we hunted every day, we made sure to break down the guns and clean them once a day.  Other then that I was very happy with the Kent ammo.  We had one gopro mounted on a head strap and two small video cams (Sony and JVC) mounted on gorilla tripods and set on the ground or attached to the Aframe blind.

Things I Learned

I'm not sure I learned anything new but many things were reinforced.  The first is how important scouting is.  Our outfitters and guides would help get the hunting crews setup in the AM and then hit the roads to scout and they covered a lot of ground and always had us on birds every day and every hunt.  The second was the reinforcement of cover and concealment.  You'd think with all those birds around you could get a little sloppy but we spent plenty of time brushing in the blind and it truly looked like part of the landscape when we got done.  Actually I did learn one thing.  Bring ear plugs on a snow goose hunt!  I could NOT get the sound of snow geese out of my head after this hunt.  It took a whole day before I seemed normal again.

Saskatchewan Waterfowl Hunt 2013 - Day 1

Our first trip ever to hunt waterfowl at the waterfowl factory called Saskatchewan started bright and early this Monday morning. Wait, did I really say bright?  It definitely wasn't bright, early yes but bright - no.  In fact it was really dark and cold as we made the 1 minute drive from our trailer to the Living Sky Outfitters headquarters which was located across town -  a whole 3 streets away in this 5 street town of Bladworth.

We had flown into Saskatoon late Saturday and spent the night near the airport so we didn't have to rush on Sunday.  As we made the ride down on Sunday afternoon from Saskatoon, where we flew into late Saturday and stayed the night,  to our temporary home of Bladworth took just over an hour but it was an hour that just added to the excitement and anticipation that had already built up the last couple of months.  As we drove south along Highway 11 we were greeted by fields filed with geese, way too many to count while driving along at 100 kph, that's about 65 mph for the rest of us.  Damn near every single pothole that had water, had ducks or geese on it and there was a wide variety of them as well. 

Both Bubba and I were up before the alarm and had already double checked our gear before the General came stumbling out of  his bedroom with a large grin on his face and mumbled something about "who needs a damn alarm with you two around!"  The was not Gerry's first trip to Saskatchewan for Waterfowl or hunting with the owner Jeff of Living Sky Outfitters so he obviously wanted a little more sleep.

We were one of two groups of 5 hunting this week.  Our crew consisted of Me, Jim (bubba), Gerry (The General), Brian (The Decoy Killer) whom are all from Connecticut and an acquaintance that we hunt with in Maryland we call Pintail Pete.  The other 5 man crew were good old southern boys from Georgia.  It was 22 degrees out and it didn't bother us northern boys as much as it did the southern crew.  The game plan was for our crew to hunt snow geese, while the southern crew would hunt ducks and dark geese.

So we piled all our gear and us into one of the suburbans and our outfitter Jeff lead the way to the field we would be hunting that morning.  We had a familiar face along with us as our guide was someone we hunt with regularly in Maryland and he is a great guy, who works hard and has fun and is very good at his job.   After  about a 20 minute ride we turned off the gravel road and into a cut wheat field and drove to a spot in the middle of if it.  We stopped Jeff and Billy got out and discussed the setup for the morning and then came back and gave us some direction and we went to work putting out a 450 decoy spread that consisted of full body snows, canadas, mallards, pintails, some snow goose silos and a couple of robo ducks along with 6 layout blinds and an electronic snow goose caller.  With the 7 of us getting the spread out and the blinds brushed didn't take long at all which is nice when you have guys that hunt together back home and know the drill.

As we settled in to our layouts waiting for the birds to start moving we started with some excited conversation and a little teasing.  It wasn't long after that the sky started to lighten up and show signs of life.  Game on!  It didn't take long for a 3 ducks to come screaming into the spread and I am happy to report they all stayed.  I like staying ducks and hate those leaving ducks!  Off in the distance you could hear the sound of snow geese getting ready to lift off and due to the flat terrain we could see a very large group of snows way, way off in the distance and highlighted by the rising sun get up from the roost and head out.  These were not the geese that were using the field we were in, but it definitely drove the excitement level up as we watched a couple thousand snows fill the sky.

The white tornado of snows willow leafing into the spread never occurred, but we watched thousands and thousands of snows fly over our spread heading to a new field and it was definitely heart breaking and frustrating, but also breath taking.  Just an incredible sight to see and the noise level was deafening and something I ended up hearing in my sleep that night. It was so loud that the electronic caller that sat just a few yards away could not be heard over the natural sounds coming from the sky. We did pick off some snows as smaller groups liked the spread and tried to join in.  We also picked up some more ducks as well as some dark geese including a lone Speckle-belly.  For us it was a GREAT morning, for our Guide and outfitter not so much.

We packed up the rig and headed back to barn and on the ride out we flushed some huns along the side of the road, which we thought about trying for and as we were stopped there discussing  a game plan we were greeted by all those snows that flew over our spread heading our way and back to the roost.  It made for some nice video.  We also found the rest of those stubborn white birds on our ride out to the main road as they just sat feeding in another field.  We had to see 20,000 or more snows that morning.

Back at the outfitters headquarters we talked a bit about the morning hunt and listened to what the scouters had seen that morning, discussed plans for the afternoon and then headed out to get some lunch and a quick nap.

Due to the fact that hunting geese in the afternoon was closed for another day here in our part of Saskatchewan we set out for an afternoon duck hunt in a pea field.  We setup an a-frame blind in some tall grass on the edge of the field and brushed it in really good and then set out 4 dozen full bodies duck decoys consisting of mosly Mallards with some Pintails mixed in.  Two Robo ducks were placed in the spread as well as a dozen geese for some confidence decoys.

Seeing we couldn't hunt geese on this evening we most certainly expected to see plenty of them and we did.  We even had them landing out in our spread and farther out in the field and of course the ducks wanted to land with them.  When that happens you just have to get out of the blind and walk them geese up and get them out of here.  We even had 3 speckle bellied geese land on the edge of the duck spread and they stick around for a few minutes, until a few ducks showed up and committed only to become staying ducks!

It was a very interesting afternoon hunt with thousands of ducks working by the spread and enough of them committing to it so that we could put 34 ducks in the bag to finish off a 5 man daily limit of 40 ducks.  Many of these would become dinner the next night. 

Gear Used

I was toting my Browning BPS 12ga pump with a Code Black Duck Patternmaster tube which I just added this year.  We were shooting Kent Fast Steel 3" #2s and they did the job just fine.  There was also a Mossberg 935 12ga with a Patternmaster Long Range tube, two Remington 11-87s with factory chokes and a Benelli SBE II with Patternmaster tubes in our blind all week.   I was totally amazed at how much gun I actually had while using the Patternmaster tubes.  If you put the bead on them, they dropped and that included the birds trying to get out of dodge.  The tubes are deisgned to reduce the length of your shot string giving you more pellets on target and from what I had seen, they most certainly succeeded.  If you haven't tried a Patternmaster tube, I strongly suggest you do.  I just ordered additional tubes from my Remington 870s.

Things I learned 

I learned quickly that my simple plan of setting my video camera up on a tripod on the ground or attached to the blind was just not going to work out the way I had hoped.  The reason - well the birds just refused to commit to the area that was visible to my camera.  That was very inconsiderate of them don't you think.   That night while trying to sleep I also learned that those dang snow geese are so loud that their sound rings in your head for hours, upon hours after the hunt.

Moose Update and Other Ramblings

Quick update on our resident moose.  We haven't seen here since the previous weekend but we did run into some new moose sign that wasn't there the previous outing. 

I found this tree which looks just like the first one we found and the more I think about it, I don't believe this was done by a bull moose with his antlers, but by our resident cow moose who is stripping and eating the bark.  I'm sure some of you in moose country can chime in here, what do you think?  

I even took my better half out for a walk to retreive a seat we left in one of our blinds so while out there we tried to find Mrs. Moose but we didn't.  We did have a great hike on a cool fall afternoon though.  Very refreshing.

This is an old foundation out on a piece of State forest land.  I sure would have liked to live out here back in the day.

The deer activity out in this area has been quiet and with the rut about to kick in and the cool weather I was a little discourage with the lack of sightings and sign.  We only have one more week until our gun season opens and that will change it even more.

Haven't seen many ducks around lately but the beavers have done such a good job with their damn and widening out this brook, I'm hoping it will stay open through this recent cold snap and offer up a little hiding spot for some traveling ducks.  Just need to get through gun season before I hunt this area.

Saskatchewan Waterfowl Hunt 2013 - Just a Teaser

Well we made it home safe and sound from a week long Waterfowl hunting trip to Saskatchewan with Living Sky Outfitters in Bladworth SK.  I am still struggling to put this trip and experience into words and have almost 50gb of video to sort through and hundreds of pictures so for now here are some pics and a short video clip to get everyone excited.

Took this after our snow goose hunt were we stopped 5 birds short of a 5 man limit of 100 birds and just continued to watch thousands and thousands of snow geese work over our spread.

Sunset Toll

This Picture is only a small portion of the field across the street from one of our morning hunts and it was literally covered in snows, black geese and ducks - lots of ducks.  We still managed to take our share of birds this morning.   It was an incredible site and the picture doesn't do it justice.

The X

Just a few pics of the snows that kept coming after we stopped hunting.  We just laid back and enjoyed the show.

Yes, they have more then just ducks and geese at this waterfall factory.  We saw moose, deer grouse and plenty of other wildlife.  This nice young muley was trying to hid just a mere 40 yards off a dirt farm road.  He definitely blended in and let us take soem pics and video of him.

Here is a short video clip of a few ducks working our spread after we just finished a 5 man limit of 40 ducks.  Took this one with my cell phone under the hood of the layout while we stayed setup for some geese.

There will be many more posts from this trip to come over the next couple of weeks!

Gone Hunting - Saskatchewan Here We Come

It's finally here!  We are on our way to Saskatchewan for a week of waterfowl hunting and hopefully sore shoulders and full bellies!  I will do my best to post a daily update either here, on my twitter feed or on my facebook page and I'm sure I will have plenty of stories to tell and pictures to share when we get back.

Wish us luck!

For now we are "Long Gone To Saskatchewan!" - Corb Lund!

Your Daughter Shoots Like a Girl!

Growing up in a neighborhood full of boys, it wouldn't take long for someone to make a bad play during a street game and someone would mouth off to the tune off - you swing like a girl!.  Everyone would laugh and away we went.  Being all grown up now and having a daughter of my own I can admit that she does throw like a girl, shoots like a girl, fishes like a girl and hunts like a girl and I am proud of it.  Heck I wish I could shoot like a girl sometimes, because she is pretty darn good and getting better every day.  My daughter Kaleigh has always loved to fish and shoot, but just in the past couple of years has she taken the plunge into hunting and I must admit, she is getting really good at it.

With our busy schedules time in the field with my kids is limited so any time that our schedules open we jump on it and our schedules allowed us to enjoy an afternoon in a backwoods puddle for an waterfowl hunt.  I picked my daughter up at school, made a quick trip to the archery shop to have a quick fix done to her bow, grabbed some lunch and headed home to load up the gear and head off to the swamp.

On the way up the road I got a call from Busch Pilot who was on his way to join in the fun.  Kaliegh and I got the canoe unloaded and I loaded it up with the decoys and headed out to setup a spread consisting of some mallard decoys and some goose floaters.  While I was doing that, Kaleigh was carrying gear to the blind and keeping our lab Hannah from following me out in the canoe.  Once the decoys were set, I pulled the canoe up on shore and hid it in the brush and joined Kaleigh and Hannah in our hide.  Busch Pilot showed up about 30 minutes later and joined our group.  After BP got his  normal welcome of a face full of smelly lab tongue from Hannah, we settled in and started scanning the sky and listening for any hint of ducks or geese all while enjoying the incredible fall colors that were made even more vibrant with the setting sun.

It was a pretty quiet afternoon, right up until about 20 minutes before sunset, which is legal shooting light in CT, when I swore I heard geese off in the distance.  Busch Pilot and Kaleigh both claimed I was hearing things but I did convince them to hit the call and sure enough we got a response.  We couldn't see them yet but could tell they were coming in for the night and hopefully they would land on the X which was wide open and out in front of us.  I picked up the 4 geese just as they broke the trees about 50 yards behind us and they were low and heading in and looked like they were going to land short so Busch Pilot told Kaleigh to go ahead and take em.  Just as they were about to get their feet wet, she stood up with her Remington 870 and squeezed off a shot and two geese hit the water.  We all stood there in amazement with our mouths open and forgot about the other two geese that were making a hasty retreat for safety, which they succeeded at.

Kaleigh had fired one shot and had her limit of two geese while Busch Pilot and I were lighter a couple of shells and had to hit the drive thru for dinner.   So when I say she shoots like a girl there is nothing negative about that comment.  Heck, both Busch Pilot and I wished we had shot like a girl that night and couldn't have been more proud of her.  Maybe if we are lucky she will gives us a lesson or two.

You go Girl!

So Where Did That Canada Goose Really Come From?

For those of us who hunt waterfowl the fall migration is the holy grail and something we look forward to every year.  Migration means large numbers of ducks and geese leaving their northern haunts and heading south for the winter, but you never really know where that duck or goose was unless you are lucky enough to harvest a bird that has been banded.  For us waterfowlers, a banded bird is truly a special gift and one that causes a bunch of discussion in the blind until that lucky hunter can get home and report the band to find out where this bird was from. 

Bubba's Banded Goose

Last week was the Goose opener here in Connecticut and it found yours truly and the normal group of characters headed to the dairy farm for what we had hope would be a successful  hunt with a limit of geese to be turned into a fresh batch of goobasa, goose keilbasa that is. Little did we know that this hunt would turn special with one shot at a goose trying to get away, but it surely did.

It started out as a normal hunt on the farm, with an early morning gathering, setting out the decoy spread, hunkering down in the blind and waiting for the geese to start moving.  We had to deal with the fog and low visibility and birds that don't make much noise in the fog, but the second group of geese heading our way liked what we had to offer and committed to the spread.  Just as the first couple of geese touched down, the caller called take em, the door to the blind fell and there were 15 geese to pick from. We dropped 3 right away and one a little farther out to eh right and Bubba took a final shot at one trying to get out of dodge just about to the safe zone but he dropped it.  Once the shooting is done, the Chinese fire drill starts where a couple of us exit the blind and gather up the downed geese.  I had the pleasure of being set out for the long retrieve and as I approached the down bird, I got my first glance of the jewelry this goose was wearing - A dulled yellow neck collar.  Now I know no one say the collar or the goose would have been dumped a whole lot quicker, so I gathered up the goose making sure my hand covered the collar completely and the feet facing away from everyone.  As I approached the blind the guys were stammering about what a good shot that was and I asked who made the shot, hoping multiple people would claim it, but everyone pointed to Bubba and so I spun the goose around so everyone could see the yellow neck collar and you would have thought everyone was watching the winning run score in game 7 of the world series.  No one really payed much attention to the metal leg band at the time, so we put the goose in the blind and got set back up for the next flock.

We worked the next flock that came in and brok three geese away and they dumped into the decoys and all three stayed and joined the previous 5.  The next flock allowed us to break off just two birds which was exactly what was needed to finish off our 5 man limit, so the pressure was on for Busch Pilot and Chuck to drop the last two and it took an extra shot or three but they did their job and the mission was complete and it was just 7:50am.  A 5 man limit of geese on the 2012 Connecticut goose opener, man you could could smell the goobasa cooking in the smoker.

2012 opening day goose limit

As we were picking up and trying to get packed up and out of the field so as not to spook any geese coming in for a morning meal, one of the guys was looking over the banded goose and took the first look at the leg band and it read - Zoologisk Muesuem  Coppenhagen, Denmark.  This was obviously not the typical federal leg band that we have seen before and the excitement level grew and we could not wait to get back to the house to see what we could find out about this band.  After reviewing the federal band reporting sight and finding nothing, we did a quick google search and found a report from a New Jersey hunter that harvested a goose tagged in the same manner.  There were some links in the replies to his post asking for help and one pointed us to the European Union for Bird Ringing (http://www.euring.org/).   Where after review of their website we found a link to the European Colour-Ring Birding website (http://www.cr-birding.org/) which had links to search the ringing projects where we found two that matched the method and species of Bubba's goose.  There were two projects, one in Russia and one in Greenland.  Both projects listed contact information for the project coordinators so we sent off a couple of emails and by that evening Bubba had received a reply confirming that the banded goose he harvested was from the Greenland project.

Bubba with his West Greenland Banded Goose

The information received from the coordinator confirmed that Bubba's goose had been captured and banded as an adult female on July 23, 2008 on lake "F" in an area known as Isunngua (few of the lakes have names in this area) which was just north of the airport at Kangerlussuaq in West Greenland.  This goose had been reported as being sighted in Connecticut in November of 2008 and September of 2009 as well as back in West Greenland in 2009, 2010 and most recently in July of 2012.  Geese from this project have been reported from Canada to as far south as Virgina and as far west as Ohio. You can read more about this banding project and some of the geese from this project at:  http://greenland2011.wikispaces.com/Recoveries+and+resightings.   

Now we really are not sure how far this goose actually flew because we don't really know what flight path it took and what stops it made along the way from West Greenland this year, but the best I could come up with is approximately 2000 miles as the crow goose flies.   We may not know where the other 4 geese that were harvested in out of the flock with GNI, but you would have to think that she wasn't alone in this flock.

Remember to report all sightings and harvests of banded birds and a good place to start is the Federal band reporting website at: http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/bblretrv/

Some local Stories and Shout Outs

I haven't had much time to get in the woods so nothing to really report so I  figured I would share some local news stories that I found interesting.  Hope you enjoy some of them.


Woman Scares black bear from her deck

Now I have had to yell at a few bears while hunting to shag them away, but never from my porch or deck.  This lady is either really tough or not playing with a full deck.  The guy with the video camera is definitely not playing with a full deck.  Yikes!

Click the link below to view the video
http://www.courant.com/entertainment/viral/hc-woman-scares-away-bear-with-her-shout-20121002,0,6500388.htmlstory


New Breed of Hunter Shoots, Eats and Tells - NY Times Article

There was a great article in the NY times the other day related to hunting which was kind of shocking because normally hunting doesn't get good press around our neck of the woods, but this article was definitely positive.  The fact that it also include a few of the blogs and people that I follow made it even more special.  Have to give a shout out to Tovar Cerulli from the Mindful Carnivore for being mentioned in the article.  I've been following his blog and his progress on writing his book and his hard work is paying off and he really brings a great perspective to hunting.  Stop by and visit his blog or pick up his book.

Click the link below to read the article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/books/new-breed-of-hunter-shoots-eats-and-writes.html?_r=0


Connecticut Waterfowl Stamp Artwork Winner will be represented on the 2013 stamp

Winning Artwork by Richard Clifton

With waterfowl season just around the corner many of waterfowlers have already purchased our season Federal and State waterfowl stamps and I am always amazed at the incredible talent of these artists and the incredible waterfowl creations they create.  Richard Clifton's artwork of 3 Wood Ducks on a log was chosen to be the 2013 CT waterfowl stamp and being a huge fan of wood ducks I must agree that this is a winner.

You can visit the CT DEEP Website to view all the entries and get information on the next contest by clicking the link below.
http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?a=2723&q=492150&depNav_GID=1655


With the many hunting seasons that open in October across the Northeast, please remember to be safe and respect those that don't hunt and leave the outdoors better then you found it. 

Now get out and enjoy the great outdoors and fall colors and share the passion with someone!