Sense and Sensibility

I made the mistake of telling Ernie this weekend that goose hunts couldn't be blogged, because they lack the narrative drama of a good grouse hunt. (And note to Keith and Eric: a "good" grouse hunt doesn't necessarily result in a limit of grouse and teal in a morning's effort. heh heh)

Oh, there will likely be a fair amount of ball busting of Keith in this writeup. That was pretty much the dominant topic of conversation this weekend when things were slow. Not that things were ever slow. As Ernie said to Eric on the phone, "They're just stacking up like cordwood here!" You know, Eric will probably get some abuse in this post too, now that I think about it. heh heh.

Anyway, because Ernie challenged me to come up with a suitable narrative thread for this past weekend's activities, here I sit typing up my first-ever goose writeup. And while the massive consumption of cold beer on Saturday night provides a tempting possible focus (or lack of focus? which is certainly how some of us felt later on Saturday evening), I'm sure we all can agree that abusing Cabin Boy has a lot more potential for laughs and gaiety.

Okay. So Ernie invites me up for the last weekend of goose hunting, and says to be there "between 7 or 8 am." So I show up at 7:30 am Saturday morning, just in time to see Mike and Ernie put the finishing touches on a decoy spread that can't be beat. The location of course was the famed "dozer pile." Temp was 2 degrees F, no wind to speak of, and the three of us were clothed in snow camo.

Keith and Eric, meanwhile, were (how did Cagey put it in another post?) (ah yes, here, I have it): "taking the sensible route" and hunting in Eric's little honey hole, the Morehouse Ponds, aka, "Nancy's back yard." Perhaps Eric and Keith will blog about THAT sensible hunt sometime. heh heh.

but I digress.

good versus evil: the Canoga Killing Fields
(click to enlarge)

We settled into the dozer pile, sweaty from our exertions (well, Ernie and Mike were sweaty, I was pretty comfortable), and settled in for the wait. After a half hour or hour or so, Mike opined that the dozer pile might just strike out for us on the final weekend, but the wise-old Ernie just said "patience grasshopper, patience."

Of course, it is always possible that maybe the beer on Saturday night clouds my memory. But at least that's what I think Ernie said to Mike at that point.

About 9:00 am a lone goose landed in the decoys. When Ernie said take 'em, I did my best imitation of a 250 yard rifle shot at a woodchuck, and missed. Harumph. Watching the goose fly away, Mike was heard to mutter something under his breath that included the terms "skunk" or "skunked." Again, Ernie smiled and, sensibly, said, "patience, patience. In dozer pile we trust."

Another single flew into the spread an hour or so later. This time death came to the dozer pile, and our heroes were "on the scoreboard" as they say. And O'Connor was heard to say, "well, at least we won't be skunked today."

By this time, it was 10 or 10:30 am, and the Tidball truck was seen to be skulking (or was that "skunking"?) away from the Ponds. "A sensible move," thought we in the dozer pile. "They must already have their limits," another of us ventured.

Ernie on the phone with Eric confirmed the limits theory: Keith and Eric had reached the limits of their patience at the ponds, and so they sensibly had packed it in for the day, no doubt removing to the Kuneytown Sportsmen's Club for breakfast and beer.

what the Kuneytown Wonder Boys didn't see much of this weekend

Meanwhile, the hard work of goose hunting continued. No quitters us. At 11 am or so, a flock finally worked the dekes but flared before committing. "Something's not right with the dekes" all agreed, and with tenacity and grit Ernie and Mike supervised the rearrangement of the spread--tightening some up over here, spreading them out a bit further there--and voila! the mystery was solved.

Twenty minutes later, a flock came in again to the dekes, slowly slowly circling, working them warily, until the moment of truth arrived and O'Connor barked, "take em." And with that three guns went off, and three birds fell from the sky.

And there was much rejoicing.

No more talk of being skunked or packing it in early. No more lack of faith in the dozer pile. Now, only a gritty determination to show those beer-chugging Kuneytown quitters how it's done.

The hunt wore on. Flock after flock of geese worked the dekes, some coming in close, others not so close. A thousand ducks got up from the ponds but no shooting (hmmmm, I wonder where the Wonder Boys are? sensibly warm somewhere else no doubt).

Another flock came in and two more geese were downed--one falling to Tantillo's gun to the north bearing jewelry, although that fact went unnoticed until the very end of the day. Ernie, however, in observing the condition of the bird when retrieved, took notice of the bloodied condition of the bird's upper left breast, which provided the key identification factor at day's end for giving credit where credit is due. No sirree, none of this "geese Cagey claims to have shot." Ernie is the most honest goose hunter that ever lived. (and he told me to make sure to get that into the blog post somehow.)

heh heh.

still life with jewelry

What are we up to now, seven geese? Around 1:30 pm Ernie left for a while to go sign some gas drilling paperwork in the house, and in his absence, we had some high drama on two more downed geese. A flock came in, worked the dekes, and shots were fired. I had a bird down inside the dekes, while Mike had one sail away far across the field only to crash land DOA before the treeline. The two of us took off to retrieve our downed birds. Only one of us returned with bird in hand.

My hands tremble as I type this, but I in a fit of newbie nitwitlessness, allowed my bird to first walk away, head up, as I debated finishing him off with a head shot, and then, as my bird took flight and flew away, failed to pull the trigger to bring him back down to earth.

Insensible with grief, I returned to the blind empty-handed.

the one that got away

We fought on for perhaps another hour, but that was it. We decided to pack it in. As Ernie left to get the four-wheeler and the trailer for the dekes, another lone goose flew in low from the north over the hedgerow. Mike and I saw it just as Ernie started yelling "bird, another bird!" With Mike's gun cased and Ernie still walking towards camp, the suicidal goose met its demise with a final load of BBBs from the Spinelli, and it crumpled to the ground with a convincing thud. Redemption from the one that got away.

Thus, charging the ninth one that got away to our bag limit of three each, we pulled the dekes and packed up eight geese at 3pm, built a campfire at beer camp, and proceeded to empty Ernie's cooler of the various malt beverages it contained.

And there was much rejoicing.

happy beer campers with birds