As I stood knee-deep in swamp muck and duck saturated water, I was glad I wore my waders! What a strange hunt. We were hunting a corn field for geese! Randy's dog, Hunter found the black duck, unbelievable! I forgot what a good nose he has. "Hunter! Come here, boy. Fetch it up!" Oh no! He's not coming to me. That rascal his heading straight back to his owner!
This expedition was spawned in the imagination of my good friend, Randy. He was remembering a hunt that he and I had twenty years ago. On that day we visited his high school cross country coach who has a farm near Sandusky Bay. We went on a hunt there in late November and bagged a pair of giant canadas in the one goose zone. One goose per day was our rationale for not returning sooner, but the limit has since been relaxed. It was time to try it again.
It is a three-hour drive from my house to the Bay. Consequently, it was an "early morning" that November day. Anyone who is a serious waterfowl hunter has rolled out of bed in the middle of the night in order to reach that magic destination. We are usually willing to make this sacrifice for the opportunity for good shooting. There is no such thing as a guarantee in hunting. This hunt was no exception. We had no "intel" on the current goose migration, only a forecasted cold front moving in from the north. I received a call from Randy that Matt and I needed to join him on Wednesday before Thanksgiving for a goose hunt at his former coach's farm. That meant that we had to pack up 100 full bodied goose fakes and shells. It took a few minutes to load all of those dekes in the back of Randy's truck, but we managed. We loaded our guns and two dogs and were on our way!
Our merry band pulled off the road beside some corn stubble barely before shooting time. The decoy bags had to be carried some 200 yards off the road to a small mound in the field. It is important to be respectful of a farmer's property and not drive in their fields. As I picked up the last bag, it clanged. "What in the heck do you have in this bag?" I asked Randy. "It weighs a ton!" "I saved that bag for you!" Was his response. "It has some mojo mallard decoys and poles. I thought they might add some movement." "This bag will have plenty of movement when I hit you over the head with it!" I said with a grin. Randy was smiling from ear to ear listening to me complain about being his pack mule! All in fun, we rib each other and laugh all the time. You have to have fun, because life is too short.
It was cold, below freezing, but the ground was still soft. We had no trouble inserting the silhouette stakes into the ground through the thin frozen layer. As we plunged the mojo poles into the field we could detect the faint odor of manure used to fertilize the field.
Shooting time came, but no birds were in sight. This was not terribly disturbing as goose peak movement hours are usually closer to 10:00 AM, especially when it is cold. The sunrise was beautiful. The beauty was short-lived, however, as dark gray clouds moved in rapidly from the northwest. It wasn't long until the dark gray clouds of autumn dominated the sky. "Perhaps this cold front will bring in some migrators!" My wishful thinking was echoed by my partners. The wind picked up as predicted and the temperature seemed top drop even more. Randy was babbling on about the flight times of geese and suddenly paused. "Are those ducks?" He added to his monolog. I turned my gaze in the same direction to see a flock of hundreds of ducks approaching from the north. "Let's get in position!" I mumbled as I flopped down. Everyone quickly took their places among the fakes. We did not have room for our layout blinds in the truck, so we used corn stalks and weeds as cover. The feathered migraters coasted high overhead to our chorus of hail calls. To my surprise, the flock made their way downwind and began to turn. They swung wide around our blocks still too high to identify, but we knew they were big ducks. They kept turning and now clearly descending on our party of pretenders. The made a tornado of ducks! It seemed like it took ten minutes for them to get close enough to see clearly, mallards! Without warning four ducks broke out of the swirl and locked their wings straight at the mojos. "Take'em!"Randy yelled. I hesitated because of the vast numbers of birds hovering overhead. The scatterguns sounded off and all four mallards were on the ground waiting for our two eager labs, Gunner and Hunter. "Alright!" Randy barked out playfully."Who shot the hen?" I stood up, both literally and figuratively, "I did! It was the only one left!" my late arrival to the party resulted in a brown mallard, frowned upon by our group. "I thought I said pick out a green head!" Randy pronounced judgment. "You did not!" The ribbing did not have a chance to last very long. I was saved by another huge flock of ducks. This group followed the same pattern. They drifted downwind and began to turn until they formed an avian tornado descending on us! As the hoard of ducks circled out of range two green heads broke off and came screaming in just off the deck. "Let these go!" Randy said what we were all thinking. "We want green heads, Bill, but bigger groups!" That was Randy getting a shot in at me. I didn't have to look at him to see that ornery grin! The pair coasted on through. I followed them until I couldn't turn my neck any further. When I looked back I saw a group of eight dropping right in our laps! It seemed like a shame to shoot at groups this size and educate hundreds of ducks, but you have to play the cards that are dealt you. I picked out a green head, sat up and folded him up like a bath towel! My hunting partners did likewise. "Why did you shoot?" Randy looked at me as if in disbelief. "I said no small flocks. I didn't say take'em!" "Who died and left you in charge of this expedition? I don't need you to tell me when to shoot!" Matt just stood there and laughed at us. It is all good-natured kidding when you are scoring waterfowl. Matt announced that he removed a black duck from hunter's mouth. It is not unusual to find black ducks in flocks of mallards. The good news was that we could shoot more ducks. We were allowed four mallards and one black duck each. It was time to take inventory of our duck pile.
We counted our collection of six mallards (one hen) and two black ducks and discussed our limit options. After twenty minutes of watching one humongous flock after another pass us by, we finally had one small flock look our way. The small flock was about fifty ducks. my trusty lab, Gunner sat on my left. He blended in well with the corn stubble. He watched intently as the ducks circled. Each time they got downwind they would glide motionless like a kite, then move on. One hen mallard left the circle parade and drifted in slowly into the wind. "Bang!" A gunshot shattered the singing of our feeding chuckles. Randy shot the lone female! "What?! What happened to pick out the green heads! You want to talk about shooting into small flocks! That hen was alone! You gave me ten miles of grief, and you pulled that stunt!" I was letting him have it. All randy could do was lay there and laugh. he had it coming and he knew it!
Shortly thereafter another large swarm of ducks slowly cruised by at high altitude. The tornado soon formed to our serenade of hail calls. Several times there were small groups that dipped own out of the flock but did not finish. All we could do was lie on our backs and feeding chuckle with an occasional "Quack". Gunner joined in with a soft whine as he shook with excitement. Twenty ducks finally committed, and four stayed behind upside down in the decoys. A fifth bird fell out of the sky on the far side of the field.
Those birds made five for Randy, so he went to the truck to eat and get warm. Matt decided to walk across the field to see if he could find the duck that fell. I elected to stay put as I only had three on the day. No sooner than Matt was out of sight, but forty ducks were in my face coming straight in. I waited, but they didn't want to finish. As they started to drift off to my left, I sat up and unloaded my gun. I could not believe it as I watched them flying away! I almost did watch long enough when one bird fell straight down out of the flock! It wasn't pretty, but I didn't get skunked! Randy came walking out in the field, "Hey! Do you have any dead birds on this side of the road?" I said, "I believe so. Why?" A black duck crash landed into that timber on the other side of the road. Well, Hunter found that bird and Matt found my drake mallard on his way back.
My shooting might not have been great, but I filled my limit. At any rate, it was a heck of a "goose hunt" for not seeing any geese!
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