Some of you may remember this winter goose hunt of a couple of years ago and how much fun we had that day. Well opening weekend out of
BC hunt club (that's right there is a new Blog site by that name) was almost as good! Saturday morning found 4 of it's members hunting the infamous Canoga Creek Conservancy and enjoying the early morning sunrise watching about 20 coot, not grebe, swimming in the decoys in front of the double black. While there were plenty of birds flying, despite the prevailing conditions on Cayuga Lake, there were few of them willing to fly into the sights of the group. While one teal took the opportunity to challenge the shooting skills of one Mr. JT it had the misfortune of collecting a couple of pellets propelled its way from the muzzle of the "Spinellie", but had the final laugh on Jim by hiding in the marsh until being flushed out by Fiona and back into the lake and finally swimming away. The only clean kill of the morning was made by yours truly, when I tired of the patience of my fellow hunters, and took the opportunity to fall one of three American Widgeons that were cautiously circling the blind. Again this bird also fell into the marsh and once again Fiona came to the rescue by sniffing out the delectable little river duck and bringing it back proudly to Keith's call. The rest of the morning was spent watching birds fly into competing blinds to the south only to find their demise for their actions. The afternoon found Mike O, Robert T and myself sitting in the Dozer pile behind beer camp. While many birds challenged our hunting skills only 2 fell to the earth , but the die was cast for the following mornings hunt. Sunday morning found 5 anxious souls lurking in the goldenrod that surrounds the dozer pile. First light had woodies challenging their patience as well as a small flock, of what most thought were teal, attempting to take off Roberts head. These birds came through so fast that by the time Mike O got out the words"Take Em" they were by us and gone. Many laughs were had at this entire act which took no more than 3 seconds to elapse. Then the real fun started. Ever watch one of those hunting shows where birds seem to rain from the sky? Well the next flight of birds were just like that. A group of Mallards, whose numbers were too many to be accurately counted, made the mistake of entering "the zone" from which 4 birds dropped like rain and the hunt was on. Many more birds were fallen through the day for a final tally of 20 ducks making for the best duck hunt ever out of beer camp. There were many events through the day that will be recalled around the campfire for years to come. Some of these involved a certain professor who received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2001 and is the author of such learned publications as
Ethics vs. Preferences (2004) and
The Morality of Hunting:A Damnable Pleasure (2002). As a result of his exploits we will now and forever more be calling him "Greedy"! The first such exploit came when a single bird attempted to fly through the spread. This drake Mallard, with a band glistening on his leg in the early morning light, came from right to left when what appeared to be a single shot rang out. I was positioned towards the right of the group while Greedy was directly to my left. As the bird fell lifelessly to the ground I made the polite gesture of thanking greedy for the backup. Well one would have thought my act of appreciation was tantamount to a kick in the nuts by the reaction I received! "What, you shot too?" was all that came out of the mouth on and extremely reddened face. I naturally stated the obvious as the bird passed by me first " of course I shot, didn't you hear me shoot?" That's all it took to set off a cloud of steam from the ears and a barrage of profanities from greedy's head. One would think that he would at least acknowledge the landowners claim to the bird, as Mike O did when he retrieved the duck from the base of the flying circus and dropped it at my feet. Mr. Greedy was so upset that only then did he notice the bird was in fact banded, as he never noticed like I did, while the bird was in flight! Well this is when he must have received the second kick in the nuts because he really went off the deep end then! Being the gracious host I am I threw the bird to him and let he believe for the rest of the day that he had in fact made the kill, but those of us that were there know the true story.
It wasn't much later when 4 more birds entered the zone and to the delight of all they all fell to the earth dead on impact. Again while I screamed out "4 in and 4 down" Mr. Greedy raised 3 fingers indicating to all that he had caused the demise of 3 of the 4. Now remember there were 5 hunters 2 of which, Mike O and Mr. Tidball, are extremely good shots by anyone's judgment, yet greedy is claiming 3 out of the 4. Don't you think this is a little bit egotistical?
Despite all of the antics of greedy a fun day was had by all and many retrieves were made by Fiona once again. All those that participated with many belly laughs and I'm sure will comment to this post with further discussion about greedy's antics. Thanks all for a memorable hunt!
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