Yesterday A Higher Calling Huntin'''' Team teamed up once again with Gone Wild Outdoors to take some guys out for some geese. We packed up the trailers and made the long 2 hour drive out to western maryland to partake in the Resident Goose hunt season. We are allowed 5 geese per gun per day in this region. We ended up setting up in a horse pasture. With 3 dozen decoys deployed, my friend Andrew of G.W.O. and I were excited by the amount of feathers, droppings and foot prints from our feathered friends.
We set the layout blinds along a creek bank with a nice tree blocking our backs.
At 7:04 AM our first two visitors came in and hit the floor.
Flocks of 2 to 15 would make their decent to our field over the next hour. One particular flock from the stratosphere dropped in. These were the highest birds I have ever had comit to our spread.
With 8 birds on the floor and it was pushing 9 o''''''''clock, we had two birds locked up and rolling in. I noticed two more birds in the distance so I said down the line of hunters to let the first two come in. The two guns on the far end from me where to take the first two when I called the shot, and my friend Andrew and I were to take the two still incoming. When it came time to call the shot, I noticed orange on one of the incoming birds, I hollared "NECK COLLAR" and Andrew came up, before I could get my bead on the bird, Andrew cut loose and a puff of feathers engulfed it. The bird turned and was flying directly away from me. At about 50 yards and gaining yardage fast, I pulled off a shot that brought one feather down. The bird locked up and sailed to another field over the hill and out of site. Out of the 4 birds that came in, only one bird layed on the ground admist the decoys.
Andrew, myself and one other gunner went to find our bird that sailed. When we crested the hill, we saw two geese standing out in the middle. Our eyes were straining as we tried to see orange on their necks. No orange. We devised a plan that spread each of us a part to converge on the field. Suddenly the two birds lifted off and were flying right towards Andrew. With a shot, the back bird folded, and the other one was heading directly towards me. Just a little bit above tree height and gaining altitude, I pulled the trigger and the bird dropped like a sack of potatoes from the sky landing about 6 feet from me. I picked up my bird and was heading toward Andrew when we noticed a bird belly up in the field. And there layed the collared goose. Upon our investigation, I determined that Andrew was the one who harvested it. It had two pellet holes in the head. He was the one that got the shot off at the side profile while I shot it in the rear.
USFWS stated that this bird was banded and collared in 2003 in Quebec Canada. I don''''''''t think they collar these birds when they are young so this is an old bird that has probably flown in and out of many decoy spreads over the years up and down the Altantic Seaboard.
Andrew with his prize:
I have been goose hunting now for 30 years, and this is first for me, never before, have I witnessed a neck collar come into the spread:
Our pile of 12 birds for the day:
The Crew Andrew and I took:
