Dad, Harry Fleming and I were hunting in the Walnut Island blind. We were having a pretty slow day. As I recall, Dad and I had each killed a GW Teal and that was it. Whatever, a day in the blind is better than a day anywhere else.
Way off we saw a flock of geese. Harry had an old plastic Olt call that was real loud. He cranked it up and sure enough the birds seemed to turn towards us. They may have just been coming our way on their own, but soon enough they were actually within workable range. Dad and I each had Herter's goose calls. They were identical, but had entirely different tones. We started calling along with Harry and sure enough the geese responded. They started answering back and making a beeline for our decoys. At 200 yards out they set their wings and sailed down, just outside the decoys. We clucked around a little more and they swam right into our spread.
We watched as they tipped up, looking for a bite to eat, chased each other around, honking some, clucking some. It was fantastic to just watch them. At one point, Dad said to shoot now because half of them had their heads under water and wouldn't hear us. After a few minutes of watching, we decided to let them have it. The last thing Dad said was to be careful not to shoot too many. The limit was 2 Canada's apiece. Without saying a word to each other, Dad and I knew to let Harry fire the first shot on the water and we'd have easy pickings when they started to take off. I actually decided to let both of them shoot before I opened up. So Dad counted slowly to 3 and the plan went into action. I saw birds falling and everything was looking good. I killed a nice Honker with my first barrel and swung on another bird. Just as I pulled the trigger, apparently, a couple 'extra' birds flew by in behind the bird I was shooting at. 3 birds rolled out of the air with my second shot. For a minute all was silent. 8 dead geese on the water. Then Dad whispered, we had to think of something pretty quick, every hunter on the bay saw those birds come and go from our decoys, and we don't know who else may have been watching.
As it turned out, 2 of the birds were just crippled and started swimming out. We let them go. Just went about working old Chief and holding up birds, putting on a big show for anybody and everybody's benefit. When we had 6 birds in the blind we started watching the 2 cripples. About that time a boat appeared and came right towards the blind. We got a little nervous. Turned out to be another hunter, a guy we hardly knew. He came up and told us that there was another crippled bird out in the lake. We told him that we had our limit and that actually there were 2 birds out there that he could have if he wanted to chase them down. He said alright and headed out. He only found 1 of them, but I could still see the other one. After he was gone back to his blind I went out in the boat and started herding the other cripple towards a friend of ours who was in a nearby blind. I took it real slow until the bird got close then I gunned the motor. The bird actually got off the water for a short flight into our friend's decoys. He dropped the bird, gave me the thumbs up and I headed back.
So, everything ended on a good note. Actually it didn't end there. That night a knock came on the door of the cottage. I answered the door and it was the hunter we hardly knew. He had cleaned the goose he retrieved and brought it to us. We thanked him, but told him to keep the bird. So everybody was good to go.
Way off we saw a flock of geese. Harry had an old plastic Olt call that was real loud. He cranked it up and sure enough the birds seemed to turn towards us. They may have just been coming our way on their own, but soon enough they were actually within workable range. Dad and I each had Herter's goose calls. They were identical, but had entirely different tones. We started calling along with Harry and sure enough the geese responded. They started answering back and making a beeline for our decoys. At 200 yards out they set their wings and sailed down, just outside the decoys. We clucked around a little more and they swam right into our spread.
We watched as they tipped up, looking for a bite to eat, chased each other around, honking some, clucking some. It was fantastic to just watch them. At one point, Dad said to shoot now because half of them had their heads under water and wouldn't hear us. After a few minutes of watching, we decided to let them have it. The last thing Dad said was to be careful not to shoot too many. The limit was 2 Canada's apiece. Without saying a word to each other, Dad and I knew to let Harry fire the first shot on the water and we'd have easy pickings when they started to take off. I actually decided to let both of them shoot before I opened up. So Dad counted slowly to 3 and the plan went into action. I saw birds falling and everything was looking good. I killed a nice Honker with my first barrel and swung on another bird. Just as I pulled the trigger, apparently, a couple 'extra' birds flew by in behind the bird I was shooting at. 3 birds rolled out of the air with my second shot. For a minute all was silent. 8 dead geese on the water. Then Dad whispered, we had to think of something pretty quick, every hunter on the bay saw those birds come and go from our decoys, and we don't know who else may have been watching.
As it turned out, 2 of the birds were just crippled and started swimming out. We let them go. Just went about working old Chief and holding up birds, putting on a big show for anybody and everybody's benefit. When we had 6 birds in the blind we started watching the 2 cripples. About that time a boat appeared and came right towards the blind. We got a little nervous. Turned out to be another hunter, a guy we hardly knew. He came up and told us that there was another crippled bird out in the lake. We told him that we had our limit and that actually there were 2 birds out there that he could have if he wanted to chase them down. He said alright and headed out. He only found 1 of them, but I could still see the other one. After he was gone back to his blind I went out in the boat and started herding the other cripple towards a friend of ours who was in a nearby blind. I took it real slow until the bird got close then I gunned the motor. The bird actually got off the water for a short flight into our friend's decoys. He dropped the bird, gave me the thumbs up and I headed back.
So, everything ended on a good note. Actually it didn't end there. That night a knock came on the door of the cottage. I answered the door and it was the hunter we hardly knew. He had cleaned the goose he retrieved and brought it to us. We thanked him, but told him to keep the bird. So everybody was good to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment