Well it was a tough start to the second season with very little to brag about around the campfire. This picture is of a portion of the gang that hunted the dozer pile on the last day of the old year. Despite the high numbers of hunters that day, 9 in all, we did manage to scratch out one lonely bird. If you look closely on the left side of the picture you can notice a young hunter perfectly camouflaged. He was the only one to bag a bird on this day. He did this while both Mike O. And Ernie were out in the decoys trying to change the spread. Some big movement in the spread.
By contrast this next picture is a shot of the happy hunters after their hunt on the first day of the new year. The dozer pile was abandoned for the hedge row on the Thompson farm. The birds once again told us how to hunt this field in spite of our insistence as to where we thought they should land. It was a muddy day with warm temperatures again. We wanted the birds to come to the corn field but they wanted the wheat field. Once we decided that they were right and we were wrong we finale started to bag birds. Big Jim started off the killing, which soon caused Mike O to join him and Ernie in the hedge row. Mike lead the charge to the field to bring more decoys to the wheat and was soon followed by Ernie in the move. Keith and Eric were insistent that the corn would work out. Brent soon gave up the corn to take part in the ground pounding from the hedge. Once it started raining birds the entire group headed for the hedge.
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4 comments:
Even your bad days are good! I'm a comin', I'm a comin'...
Yes it was a great hedge row hunt but the only geese I remember raining down were the ones we shot from the corn and they rained down on you guys in the hedge row.No matter where they were shot they sure did taste good I grilled them up tonight nice and rare but not quite Tidballs duck Tar Tar excellent eats.Look foward to a couple more good hunts before it is over.
See You in the Blind Eric
you guys make it sound so easy. Mrs. Z was not quite as cooperative as I might have liked the last couple of days, plus working for a living kinda sucks. oh well. if I don't see you in the future I'll see you in the pasture. "And that's why they call it huntin'." over and out.
I concur with the general sentiment- absolutely great hunt. Would like to see less jockeying for who was responsible for the flashes of brilliance and more about the total picture...the teamwork, the comraderie, the friendship, the stuff that makes really good "hunting porn" (see Jim's earlier excellent post)!
The way I see it, the first flash of brilliance, and courage, was to try to get into that field complex at all. THAT was an excellent call, a group consensus evolved the night before around the excellent beer camp fire.
The second flash of brilliance was to set up two large, high quality spreads and absolutely cover the whole south end of both fields at the end of the hedgerow and give any bird coming from the north the illusion of a goose party not to be missed. This was no small endeavor requiring a lot of logistics and teamwork, and luck, if you think about it.
The third flash of brilliance was placing two big kite spreads, which surely looked like two almost parallel lines that said "LAND HERE."
The fourth flash of brilliance was, after recognizing that our birds would be those coming from the north, was to string a little line down the hedgerow.
The fifth, and most important, was to utilize the hedgerow for maximum concealment. Hokey stale birds, bluebird day, and we still got 'em in.
You can put any name behind any of those flashes of brilliance and it wouldn't matter if there wasn't the whole team. Besides, most of us know who has the years of experience and the track record on the waterfowling 'round these parts.
I am really grateful for the break in the monotony of small bag hunts to start the New Year, and more importantly,for the simple fact that, were it not for a band of guys at beer camp, two especially, I wouldn't know s#*@ about waterfowling.
There you have it. Cagey's said his piece and has launched himself into the New Year with visons of waterfowl, feet down of course, dancing in his head. For all those there on New Years Day, thanks for an excellent start to the New Year. For those that were absent, as Ernie is fond of screaming at me with rosy red face, "GET OVER HERE!"
Happy New Year, brothers in birdshot. Outta here.
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