Every year, September 1st marks our hunting season opener here in Wisconsin. It is the day that early goose season and dove hunting opens. Unfortunately, due to schedules, we couldn’t make it out on opener, but we did not waste our time on the weekend.
Our Friday night scouting didn’t look too promising. We drove around for 2 hours and saw only one flock of about 7 geese landed in a field that we couldn’t even hunt. We learned that another guy had already hunted the pasture that we had originally planned on hunting that we had been watching 50 or so geese in every day. We were in a tough position. I talked it over with my brother Justin and Logan, one of our hunting buddies and we decided to hunt the pasture anyways, because it usually produces and we didn’t know what else to do. So, we got our decoys all loaded up in the truck that night and planned on an early morning.
After a sleepless night, we still bounced right up when 4:30 AM came around. We gathered our last bit of gear and were on our way. The morning was perfect. A good wind of about 10 mph from the West and cool, 50 degree air greeted us as we stepped out of the truck. It couldn’t have been better it seemed. So, the three of us all grabbed a couple decoys and headed out into the pasture. As we were setting up, you could hear a big flock of geese sitting in the pond that was only about 300 yards away. Of course, this gave us hope and we were now even more excited! So, after we got the decoys set up, we went and got our blind made along the fence line. The sun came up and hit half of our decoy spread and it seemed like that was the “on” switch! We had geese flying all over all of a sudden. However, we were set up in a resting area, and the geese we were seeing were set on food. But we know that the geese always do that and they come back later to sit in the pasture all day. We were pumped up. At about 9:00 AM we had the first flock actually commit. It was a flock of four. They came in perfect, right where we wanted them. The wings locked as they lowered in towards the spread. I yelled “TAKE EM!” and we laid out all 4 in short time. We were already excited, as we all didn’t expect to get anything due to the news from the night before.
We were settled back in to the blind and not long after we heard another flock in the distance. We called and they came right in, just like the last group. This flock consisted of about 30. We let the first couple geese land and then pulled up and started taking them out. After the rest of the flock was gone, Justin informed us that he had missed all of them. Logan knocked down 2 though and I knocked down another 2. As I was walking out to pick up my geese, Logan yelled over that he had a band! Not only was one of his geese banded, but it was Logan’s first band ever, so needless to say we were all very excited.
As the morning went on, it stayed pretty slow. Justin had to get a soil sample for a class, so he was off doing that while Logan and I held down the fort. Of course, as Justin isn’t there I looked back and saw a flock off in the distance. Logan and I called and the flock turned and came our way. They were being a little more stubborn. They circled our decoys 6 or 7 times. Justin was videotaping this on his phone from where he was getting his soil. The next circle, they got lower and we decided it was time to let them have it! Four more geese were on the ground!
It was a great morning, and we decided it was time to pack it up after that flock, as it was almost noon anyways. What a great day though. We ended with 12 geese in all. We had our chance to all fill out our 5 geese limit, but we had a great time and a great morning full of action. We couldn’t ask for more!
