Way back when we were hunting at Indian Lake, I got my feelings hurt one day and sat for a long time, trying to figure out a way of getting back at my hunting partners. I was home on leave from the service and really didn't have that many days to hunt. Certainly I wanted to make the best of the days that I did have. We had the Walnut Island Blind and it was producing some pretty good shooting. Then, two days in a row, we had geese working to our decoys, only to have them sail right past us and into the decoys of some other hunters in the next blind over. We knew the guys hunting there and were happy for them, but disappointed that the geese had skipped us by.
Turned out that a couple of those other guys had to go back to work and the remaining hunter, not wanting to hunt by himself, asked us if we wanted to get together for a day. We were interested in seeing his decoy spread up close and checking out his blind, so we agreed to go with him the next day. The only bad thing about it was that they didn't hunt with a retriever and had no dog porch or ladder and really no way to bring my dog. I still wanted to hunt with him so we had to leave Chief behind for a day.
His decoys were nice. First Restle duck decoys that I had ever seen. Also had some gigantic homemade Canada Goose decoys. We had seen the big geese, but up close they were really big and nicely made. We got them set out pretty nicely and by shooting time we had ducks in the decoys.
The water at that blind was just on the edge of being too deep to wade the decoys, or retrieve birds. They had a 20 foot piece of copper pipe with a crook bent in one end that they used to assist with the retrieving on the really close dead birds. Well, being the youngest, I was designated as the retriever for the day. Just as bad luck would have it, on a couple passes of ducks, I was just finishing up the previous retrieving and wasn't back in the blind in time to shoot. Guess that is just bad luck.
Then on one instance, while I was working my way back up the shore from fetching a cripple, I heard Dad and Bysack calling geese. I hurried as fast as I could and got back to the blind just after the geese landed in the decoys. As I was reloading my 870, I asked where the geese were. Both of them said "just to the right of the decoys". Well, I was on the right end of the blind, and figured I was all set. The geese flew, somebody said to "take 'em" so we all stood up to shoot. I heard them both shooting but saw nothing. Turns out that while I was out of the blind, they had rearranged our goose decoys much farther around to the left of the point where the blind was, and the geese had been just to the right of the goose decoys. Not where I could even see them, much less get any shooting.
I was crushed. I hadn't killed many geese up to that point in my life, and to think on geese landing in the decoys and me not even getting off a shot, was really a kick in the ass. So, the day went on. We killed a nice bunch of birds, mostly all Mallards, so were all enjoying the day. Probably about 15 minutes till quitting time, Bysack asked if we were ready to pick up, and Dad responded that he wanted another shot at some geese, and they frequently flew around sunset. Just on a hunch, I switched over the shells in my gun to some very heavy goose loads, #4 Buck. Luck was with us and there came a flock of geese, slowly working their way up the lake. We called and called and finally it looked like they were going to come by us, but not stop to look at the decoys. Suddenly one set it's wings and they all landed. Out of gun range. Dad and Bysack pondered on what to do, and I went ahead with my own plan. I stood up, got one goose on the water and two more when they flew. My partners hollered around and then started shooting, managing to cripple down one more bird. When we were retrieving the birds they asked me why I hadn't shared my plan with them. I responded that sharing info was a two way street and maybe they should have treated me a little better on the first pass of geese.
The duck gods must have agreed with me. Two of my birds were banded.
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