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Nov 4th Waterfowl Hunting, and The Delicate Art of Long Term Planning

I would like to say this is the story of how I went goose hunting. About how we canceled their flight plans, then gorged ourselves on goose jerky and cheap beer… but deep down, that’s only half the story. To me, this story doesn’t start in a goose blind at 5 am. Being the cheesy romantic I am (don’t believe me? read some other stories), maybe this story should start nearly a decade ago.

Many years ago, when the Canadian long gun registry was in full swing, the people that didn’t want to deal with registration either hid or sold their firearms. Those that chose to sell were often, in my experience, older gentlemen who hadn’t hunted in many years and who had kids who weren’t into it. It was a complicated situation for a young, gun hungry, boy like me. It was sad to me to see people getting out of it, but it was nice the guns were going back onto the market. The firearms were often quite inexpensive, but they were still more than I could afford given the cost of my education combined with my part-time employment. One instance, that is relevant, is when my brother and I bought some shotguns in this fashion. I walked away with a bolt action Marlin 12 gauge with a comically long barrel and an H&R 10 gauge single shot break action for $60 a piece, a comically low price for comically unique guns. My brother came away with a side-by-side .410 for about $100 if memory serves, I would later purchase it from him and use it for many years for grouse hunting. Years later, someone I had met through my work at Wholesale Sports bought one of the shotguns, the bolt action, from me for $260. He wanted it bad and I was hesitant to sell until he told me the price. I think that is the only time anyone anywhere has made money via guns. Its been nearly 10 years and I have gotten a lot of offers for that old 10 gauge, just a basic cheap single shot shotgun, but in a gauge that people want, just so they can say they have it. I always declined because someday I might want it for goose hunting. A pastime I had never participated in, but someday hoped to.

In 2016 my brother and I finally went goose hunting, with my friend Brad. We laid out in coffin blinds and froze our cheeks off, listening to geese in the distance and saw exactly one bird, a crow. So two years later when Brad offered to take me again I was hesitant, but I was also a few drinks deep at a wedding so naturally, I agreed to go. When I sobered up and thought about it, I decided I best go do it. For one, I do believe you should do sober what you said you would do drunk, two, I needed to justify keeping that gun all those years, and three, goose hunting still, genuinely, looked like fun.

Friday I packed up and headed to Brad’s. I loaded up two shotguns: my 10 gauge and a semi-auto Benelli 12 gauge my uncle had given me. My plan was to use them both and see which I liked more. Some small part of me wanted the $60 single shot H&R to outperform the $1600 Benelli. Deep down I had a suspicion that the single shot would come up short. I arrived at Brad’s late in the evening. My intention was to go to bed immediately but Brad insisted on a few beers and some TV first. By the end of it, I had gone to bed at 1 AM. At 5 AM he woke me up for hunting, how he looked so crisp and ready for the day eludes me, I guess welders just know how to burn at both ends.

I drug my sad slug of a body out of bed and got dressed. Our friends, who were also brothers, Tyler and Dylon, were already there and starting to load their gear into the trailer with the blind and the decoys. We finished loading up and headed to our spot, a field by Brad’s parent’s house. We found a spot that looked good, it had a bit of a headwind and some short trees near a fence where we put our blind. It was a big homemade contraption made of rebar and burlap, it looked somewhat like a hay bale and comfortably sat the four of us on chairs. While setting out the decoys I couldn’t help but marvel at the stars shining through the early morning darkness, you just don’t get that in the city. We set out the decoys in a big L shape to give geese a pocket to land in, and then we sat and waited for daylight. We sat and chatted and generally enjoyed ourselves. Deep down, my hands were cold and I feared this hunt would be a repeat of my last attempt at goose hunting.

Daylight slowly broke and there wasn’t a bird in the sky. I started to wonder if I was bad luck. I sat with the butt of the Benelli on my thigh and the barrel rested against the blind. When suddenly I heard it, we all heard it, geese in the distance. All three of my companions started hammering their goose calls. We watched the group fly over, circle behind us and come in to land. Dylon, on my right, whispered “wait, wait, wait, wait… now!” we all opened fire and birds fell. A wave of emotion flooded over me, I was relieved that I wasn’t some bad luck charm, and I was nearly giddy at the thought of finally getting my first goose. We ran out and collected the geese and set them out of sight behind the blind. We had a few more waves come in and managed to get a few more geese. Dylon and Tyler also got lucky on some ducks that passed by.

We started noticing Geese were coming in but backing off last minute or simply flying over with no interest in landing. Dylon made the call the rearrange the decoys, his thought was that the area for landing was too small so we needed to split the decoys into two groups. We rushed out and did our best to rearrange. Just as we were finishing up, we could hear geese in the distance. We B-lined for the blind, half crouching, half diving through the small door at the side. In minutes the sky was black with geese, I had never seen anything like it. As they started to land we were afraid to shoot and scare off the geese behind them. There were enough that when groups flew over I could feel the wind from their wings push down onto us.  Between being in awe and not wanting to frighten away other birds we did the hunting equivalent of painting ourselves into a corner. All the geese had landed… This left us in a bit of a spot, shooting waterfowl on the ground is a somewhat debated topic in hunting. There’s no doubt it’s effective, but there is a question of ethics. We decided meat was our goal and decided to go for it. On the count of three, we jumped up, fired a shot, and tried to hit a few more flying away. It worked and worked well. We rounded up all the downed geese and were nearly at our limit. I swapped shotguns to the 10 gauge, but sadly, nothing more came. We decided to shut it down for the day and head to Brad’s to clean the geese.

That day of hunting was so fun we decided we best go again the following Saturday, just for good measure. So, just like we planned, I came back out the following Friday, this time with another case of beer AND a bottle of wine for Brad’s wife… since it was so kind of her to put up with me invading two weekends in a row. This time I was smart and went to bed at midnight instead of 1 AM, by 5 AM wakeup I was fresh and well rested. Comparatively. This time, Dylon couldn’t make it.. having a job is really cutting into his hunting, poor guy. His spot in the blind was filled by Tyler’s girlfriend Kendra. We loaded into the truck and hit a different field this week. This time we set up near a patch of bush that sat like an oasis in an overturned field.

We assembled the decoys and set them out in the split pattern that was so successful the previous week. Then we sat and waited for daylight, and all made fun of Tyler a bit. It was mostly Kendra, but we all pitched in. The sun arrived and the geese came with it, and much like the sun, they stayed high in the sky. It would seem they were afraid of the trees we had set up beside. Lesson learned, keep away from the bush, it makes sense, that’s where predators hide, also hunters, I guess. We sat and called and eventually got a small group or two to come in, this netted us a goose or two. The geese, for the most part, were landing on the other side of the field, I hatched a plant to try and sneak up and scare them, maybe they would circle and land by our decoys, or maybe I could snap a few out of the sky when I spooked them. I was wrong, I got to within 200 yards, maybe, and they all flew away, and were just gone. I wandered back to the blind and we continued calling. Then, we saw a group of ducks coming in nice and low toward us, Kendra and I took aim and fired. A single duck fell out of the sky and landed just a few meters from the blind in the trees behind us. Tyler was kind enough to go grab it. Kendra informed me that it was, in fact, my duck that fell. I think it may have been hers, but since I had never shot a duck before, I claimed it. We called some more and had one more string of geese come in, we fired, I have no doubt one of those geese was mine. After that, it was late in the morning and there didn’t seem to be any geese in the distance. We packed up and headed back to Brad’s to clean up our bounty. While we were cleaning, Kendra went into the house and helped Brad’s wife, Alyssa, make an amazing breakfast. Eggs Benedict is now my new favourite way to end an already successful hunt.

It took two days, but I got to try both my shotguns, and it answered none of my questions. I still don’t know which gun I like more, but for the price of ammo, I’ll likely stick to the 12 gauge. Guess I’ll have to save that old 10 for if I ever get a chance to go turkey hunting. Now that’s what I call a plan.

P.S.  I had my camera with me on the first day and got some footage. I did my best to edit it together for my Youtube channel, see it here. I hope you enjoy it, I am trying to expand my youtube channel a bit.

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