Bending and stretching to the wind’s mighty thrust, each tree surrounding our field flailed like groaning sinners grasping for the hands of a merciful God. Even as the sun rose with pink blotches of cloud poking through the eastern overcast blanket, a full moon hung with eerie clearness contrasting its counterpart in the western sky. For a brief moment our humble little bean field appeared to be the epicenter of a battle between heavenly bodies.
Early season goose hunting can be hit or miss. Many states hold early waterfowl seasons and here in NY, the early September goose season targets the abundant local population. While most sportsmen and women see September as the time to hit the western mountains in search of elk and mule deer, for those stuck at home, this early waterfowl season and its generous bag limits can provide the fall kick-off we crave.
For the entire week, my brother had been plaguing me to come home from school to join him and two of my best friends for an early season escapade. With the forecast calling for cold and perspiratory weather, when I was bombarded with texts during a class saying we had the only cut bean field in the area, my choice whether to stay at school or go hunting was easy. Knowing the field lay in a flyway pinch point between the only two major bodies of roosting water in the area, my foot pressed the gas pedal a bit harder..
Early season geese are looking for other groups to join making our location ideal. My younger brother Austen is well versed in waterfowl tactics and didn’t find it surprising when he asked me to stuff as many full body goose decoys into my little Four Runner as possible.
“Dude, early season birds want big groups to land in, we need to bring as many as possible.” 12 full body Bigfoot decoys and four popup blind crammed into the back and top of the truck as we buzzed down the highway two consecutive mornings praying the straps would hold. “Think about what the birds are going to see from above,” Austen said under the shine of the truck lights. With a strong south wind, Austen ordered us to create a giant horseshoe with our opening facing north. Thanks to a small grassy swail in the
middle of the bean field, we were able to camouflage our blinds to near invisibility status with the abundance of cattails and weeds. As dumb as geese seem, too many times they have skirted my decoy spread for the smallest things. Moral of the story, be picky about decoy spreads and brushing in your blind for waterfowl success.
Cupped wings and lowered feet, when the proverbial “Landing gear” is set and birds have committed to your decoy spread is among the most graceful scene in the wild. Although I’ll be honest I feel like a mad scientist knowing we fooled birds into landing. With a bit of maturity, wing shooting has become far more enjoyable than when I was a young lad. Wing shooting is comparable to hitting a baseball, swinging a golf club or shooting hoops, you need to find your rhythm. One of the greatest feelings as a wing-shooter is dropping a bird from the sky rendering it motionless upon arrival to terra firma. Like swatting mosquitoes out of the air, group after surprised group of birds dropped one by one with each consecutive dull pop of a shotgun. We quickly began accumulating stacks of fresh protein for later consumption.
The simplest way to describe our shooting performance, we hammered the birds. We coined a new term Gooseagedden. Each time a firing pin touched a shell in the chamber, birds dropped like rocks off a cliff, hard and fast. While describing each round of birds would be far to time consuming, here are a few of my favorite shots.
- Know when to hold’em and when to fold em: Cousin Ryan felt a little trigger happy when the first birds flew overhead Sunday morning. Rising slowly from his impromptu cattail blind, his three and a half inch BB shell crushed the bird dropping motionless to the ground in the most classic “sack of bricks” form you could imagine.
- Silence of the BAM: Silent geese are never easy especially when they approach from your blind side. Chilling with the blinds open, cracking jokes and any usual banter between young adults, we were caught off guard when geese appeared less than ten yards above our heads. Levi’s voice screamed, “ TO OUR RIGHT!” Birds dropped in unison, a lesson to birds, don’t even try for our blind side, you still won’t get away. What was great about that group was my youngest brother Ben killed his first goose ever. I am darn proud of that kid.
- Infallible goose tactic 4: Stacking a respectable pile of 11 birds around 9:30, we had just finished taking a full round of pictures right before going for the trucks. While recording a video for our one hunting partner who could not join us, we spotted birds with a bead on our blind. A mad scramble to hide the birds in the grass looked far more like a circus show. Only two birds got away from a group of six.
- Goosin is easy: Levi loves his guns and ballistics paying close attention to how bullets shoot what brands shoot how, and what chokes shoot better with what ammo. When two birds survived a hail of shots from the right side shooters, Levi put a foot and a half lead on the front bird and promptly smacked it.
While geese may seem to have zero value to most people, accumulating close to 30 birds in 2 days with five of my best friends reminded me, life needs to about far more than my own solo adventures. This was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time. Thanks guys.
Pushing the Wild Limits 