Something Special

Something special happened on this past Thanksgiving weekend, and it was something I had been planning for the past five years.

In August of 2009, my first son was born and it was a distant wish at that time that one day I’d get to take him hunting with me.  After all, not every son or daughter grows up to love the same things their parents love, and my wife and I had long previously agreed that neither of us were going to force our hobbies and pastimes on our kids.

As the years passed and my rubbery infant son became a rambunctious, energetic toddler, I made not-so-subtle attempts to ingrain a love of the outdoors and hunting into the boy.  I provided duck and goose calls as toys, I tucked him under my arm as I watched hunting shows on TV and I often took him into the nearby county forests for nature hikes that, while not technically hunting trips, were always framed as such.  I recall a distinct morning in 2012 when my son and I went twenty minutes up the road to a Halton Region county forest tract and walked the wide trails in a new fallen snow.  I pointed out deer and rabbit tracks to him, and he made it a point to follow the prints as far as he could.  He was beaming and laughing, and I was pretty sure that I had him on the right track.

My toddler son grew to become a small boy, one that was now imaginative and willful, and he began to express disappointment as a three and four year old that he couldn’t come with me to various goose, duck, deer, and turkey hunting trips.  He pestered and asked constantly, crying and sulking when I would earnestly tell him he was too little and too young to participate.  He had not yet learned even the basics of sitting quietly and he was well in advance of developing anything that a parent could characterize as ‘patience’.  Some people, my wife specifically, accused me of not wanting to bring him along as a selfish gesture, thinking that I was concerned with my own success and the possible negative impacts a small, loud, mobile child would have on my hunting results.

The fact of the matter was quite the opposite.  My primary concern was that my son’s first hunting experience should be one that was fun, in good weather, and surrounded by action and wild game.  Deer hunting and turkey hunting can feature extended periods of inaction, and I certainly didn’t want my boy to think hunting was ‘boring’.  At that moment I decided that when he reached his 5^th birthday I would take him on his first waterfowl hunt.

In my estimation, hunting ducks and geese is probably the absolute best way to bring a youth of any age into the hunting tradition.  Game is usually active, and in the case of Canada Geese in my area, it is plentiful.  For the most part, when the birds aren’t flying the kids can move around, talk, fidget, and generally just be kids.  I also find that (my boys at least) really like the noise and commotion around waterfowl hunting, what with setting up and tearing down decoy spreads, the music of the duck and goose calls, waving of flags, and the frequent shooting.  That said, hearing protection for young ears (and old ears too I would suppose) should be absolutely mandatory.

And so it was that on the October long weekend I went to bed too excited to so sleep.  I remembered my first waterfowl hunts as a young boy and the impression that they made on me; to say I was feeling the pressure to provide a good hunt for my son would be an understatement.  5am came on early, as it usually does, and my alarm buzzed me awake.  I was sharing a room at the farmhouse with my son, primarily because my wife didn’t want me to wake her or my other son (who is just a tender 2 year old).  When I walked across the room and tapped him on the shoulder, he sprang to life, literally.  He hopped out of bed and made for his hunting clothes with an energy that I don’t ever remember having.  It was a somewhat chilled morning, and I went through the ritual layering of long underwear, multiple socks, and warm shirts twice in the farmhouse living room; once for my son and once more for me. It was not an emotional morning overtly; there were no clichéd moments of hair-tousling or teary smiles, or even hugs.  We just got our equipment on and headed out the door.

Our large group of hunters met at a local gas station and planned the hunt.  My son and I, along with three others would go to a nearby cut grain field that geese had been frequenting which was adjacent to a field of standing corn.  The plan was to hide in the standing corn and go from there.

We set decoys under the waning moonlight of a rapidly approaching October dawn, and my son rambled around in the shadows, carrying Bigfoot decoys in an awkward but capable fashion.  We found our spots inside the first few rows of standing corn, and thanks to a miniature folding seat that one of the hunters with us lent me, I had my boy comfortable and still as the starry night morphed into a calm, bluebird morning.  Nothing was immediately flying, and we turned my son free to wander in with the decoys and down the line, where he asked questions and chatted with the other hunters.  We spied a thin string of geese to the southwest, and my son scampered back to his hideout next to me.  We flagged and called the geese into range, and as they worked another group of honkers fell into an approach behind them.  The first group landed, and we worked the back flock, hoping to get them to commit.

Inexplicably, the back flock made it to within sixty yards or so and then slid off line and made for an exit.  Simultaneously the group that had landed jumped up and began to depart.  Far to my right someone called the shot, and I swatted the nearest departing bird.  More shots rang out to the right and we had brought four geese to hand.  I trotted out to the bird I had shot and brought it back to my hiding spot.  My son hopped off his little seat and came over to inspect the goose, which was a good-sized bird.  He asked if it was dead and he tried to pick it up; it was a just a bit too awkward and heavy for him to hoist, but he gave it a good shot.  A few more groups came near and although we shot okay, it was a bit of a slow morning overall.  But the tepid bird movement couldn’t dampen my spirits, and my son was buoyant to be out hunting.  Eventually his small stomach pressed me to get him some breakfast, and the rest of the crew thought bacon and eggs was a solid plan.

Just as he had in the pre-dawn, James went to the decoys and started to haul them in one at a time, gripping them awkwardly and more than once he almost took a spill in the muddy field.  I was smiling pretty much throughout, and it was certainly one of those ‘proud Dad’ moments that you don’t forget.  He was all smiles too, and when I asked him if he had enjoyed the hunt he blurted out that he never wanted to stop hunting.

One of our hunting companions that day was GK Calls Field Pro-Staff member Scott McDonald, and after all the decoys were packed and the guns cased, he pulled out a knife and pried one of his several goose leg bands off his lanyard and gave it to my son.  My son was a little shy and confused about what the band meant, but once it was explained to him he wouldn’t let go of it.  I had an extra lanyard and a beginner duck call laying around, and it is safe to say that this memento has not been out of his sight in the week and a half since he received it.

So I guess I have him hooked.

That afternoon my son stayed in while myself and a few others hit a local cut cornfield and while we saw many birds, we just could not coax them to commit.  One group of three strayed too close to my end of the setup and I scratched down two of them.  We sat the field until the end of legal light, but that pair would be the only birds we would get that evening.  When I arrived back at the farm, my son was pestering my Dad to go out in the morning for another hunt.  I asked who he wanted to sit with and my son was adamant that he would sit the morning hunt with his Grandpa, so that was pretty cool.  I had never had the opportunity to hunt with my grandfather, so this was another one of those special moments that only comes around once.

I mean how many ‘first’ hunts can there be?

The Sunday morning was a repeat of the Saturday morning; James popped out of bed energetically, we ate a quick breakfast and geared up, making the field in the pre-dawn.  My son again helped out with the decoys but this time, instead of hunkering down in the grassy fence line with me, he walked down the field edge and disappeared into the grass with my Dad.  The wind was up and it was markedly colder than it had been twenty-four hours earlier, and the birds flew earlier.  We were standing up chatting when a group of three mallards buzzed the spread.  No one fired a shot.

Shortly after that we flagged and called to a group of geese that swung wide past my friend Brian, but still within my friend’s normally lethal wheelhouse.  He emptied his gun and all three birds winged away unscathed, which sometimes happens.  While we tried to figure out how that had transpired we saw another group and we worked them down the other side of the decoys, right in front of my Dad and son.  Dad reached out with his Remington 1100 and connected with one of the birds, folding it up instantly.  When he retrieved it, we noticed that it was not just any run-of-the-mill small goose, but it was a Cackling Goose, a first for Dad in nearly fifty years of waterfowling.  My son had no difficulty holding this one, and neither did his younger brother when we all made our way back to the farm later that morning.

We worked more birds and brought a few more to hand, with one winging away wounded before crash-landing in the next field over.  My Dad took my son across the shallow ditch we were hiding next to, and they went on the retrieve.  It was a convenient time to do so, as my son was getting a bit chilled and going for a walk in the sun perked his spirits up again.  This retrieve marked the end of the morning and we once again packed the decoys and headed in for breakfast.

Over pancakes and bacon my son told me all about the hunt with his Grandpa, how Grandpa told him how to hunt geese, and how he helped his Grandpa find the goose that “ran away” as he put it.  That afternoon my son and I crashed into blissful afternoon naps before enjoying the traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, grandparents, and friends.  It was a fitting way to end the weekend, and it was an apt reflection of the passing on of family traditions to the next generations.

For my part it looks like I may never get to hunt geese alone again.  My new hunting partner is already asking about going every weekend we can, and that suits me just fine.

Hunted Hard Makes for Hard Hunting

I’ve long held a theory that when there aren’t many of a given species of animal around, those animals in reality become easier to hunt.  Harder to find, but once found, relatively simpler to hunt.

When early goose opened up, I got a text from a friend of mine that a crew of guys had been really putting the hurt on the geese in our preferred hunting area.  Working them hard, shooting lots of them, and generally giving the geese a crash course in how to avoid decoys, calling, and putting a stack of pressure on them.  For a long time, our crew was the group putting the heavy pounding on the geese, but with abundance comes competition.  I’ve never minded a little bit of competition.

We stood out in the laneway until nearly midnight telling stories, laughing, and planning the day to come.  It was warm and windy, but the morning forecast told of rain coming.  Five o’clock came around awful quick and when I heard my alarm going off, the background noise outside was of pounding rain and rumbling thunder.  A flash of lightning or two made me think of rolling over and snoozing away.  Unfortunately (or fortunately) the gang was meeting in my kitchen, so I really had no choice but to suit up.

We stood in the kitchen in our gear watching rain teem down and we decided that we were going to brave the elements.  At about the time we pulled into the field, the rain had basically diminished into a thin mist, but it was still grey and foggy as we put out the decoys, and as we hunkered down in the grass along a fence that separated a pasture field from cut canola we shot each other some worried glances.  This was option “D” for us, and none of us were sure that the birds would co-operate.  Those worries were put to rest in short order.

Within ten minutes of getting situated, a small group started winging directly our way.  We hardly had to call them, and a few moans and soft clucks had the geese locked up and dropping in.  We shot adequately, but did leave a long retrieve or two for ourselves.  Every ten minutes or so for another ninety minutes they came in like that, and while our shooting (or at least mine) definitely had some early season rust on it, we put a dozen in the truck bed before 9am.  The last group of the morning hunt made me especially happy.  We were asleep at the switch and by the time we saw them they were floating down into the middle of a cut field on the other side of the road.  Rory, Tack, and I got aggressive on the calling and, to my surprise the birds picked up and started climbing.  They made a narrow clearance over the hydro lines next to the road and then started floating down again, this time about forty yards out from our ‘sweet spot’.  With good work on the low end of the calls we drifted the group into range, taking down the last geese of our morning.  A few photos and a celebratory meat-lovers omelet made me happy to be hunting again.

A dozen geese and a few happy hunters

L-R: Wayne, Rory, Tack, Jason, myself, Barry, (not pictured, Rob)

Feeling lucky, or foolhardy, those of us with layout blinds made a run on the same field for the afternoon.  We set up more to the middle and heavily grassed in the blinds.  Looking back at the blinds from our anticipated landing zone, I had to admit that they looked pretty fine.

Four hours and a couple of naps later, we had seen exactly one flock, and it had no interest of even looking our way, even though we flagged and called sweetly to them.  It was one of the only times that I’ve ever hunted that the geese did not come off the water in the evening to go to the fields.  One group to the northwest got one goose.  Hardly any were flying at all.

The only plausible solution to such a fruitless afternoon hunt was to make the spiciest possible meal from some of the geese we had shot in the morning.  Using fresh jalapenos, herb and garlic cream cheese, and browned cubed goose breast meat I presented my fellow hunters with a plate of cripplingly spicy deliciousness.  They complained and moaned, but it all got eaten.  Again it was nearly midnight when the lights went out and the stories stopped.  Some of our intrepid cohort went into town for a wedding dance.  None of that motley crew made it out for a shoot in the morning.

For those of us not inebriated, the next morning was significantly sunnier, but also crisper with a wind that blew hard and often from the northwest.  We set up in gloaming light, but a blazing fireball rose above the horizon soon enough.

Now, I hesitate to read the mind of geese, but I can safely say we saw thousands of them that morning and almost all of them had not the slightest inkling of landing in our setup, which this time had us secreted away in a copse of trees found in the middle of a freshly cut grain field.  When we stood in the shadow and overhanging limbs of the sparse trees we were as well hidden as one could ask.  Unfortunately, as we stood about in the field edge talking on the subject of women (I think) three geese…the only three geese we saw that morning below an altitude of one hundred yards…checked our spread briefly and then departed upward.  No one even managed a shot.  The other 997 geese we saw that morning were all flying high, fast, and due south.  No flagging, calling, decoys, or the prayers of us desperate heathen hunters seemed to interest them one iota.  It was my hope that all the smart local birds were in that army of geese marching down the peninsula, because the way I’d been hearing it the flats we hunt had been shot hard for four consecutive days and it was getting such that even the most persistent hunters were tasting diminished success or outright failure.  Geese hung back and circled at distances that would make the most shameless sky-buster blush.  They were just being downright ornery and tough as hell to work.  I had a walloping huge plate of bacon and eggs to drown my sorrows at being so handily defeated that morning by a bird with a chestnut-sized brain.

But despite the hard-slogging, we were hunting again and as we laughed and were cruel to one another’s failings and faults, it didn’t really matter how much we shot or didn’t shoot.  There was a time when we valued our experiences in body count, but the bloom has been off that particular rose for some time now, and although I won’t speak for a goose, I think I can speak for my hunting chums when I say that we get a thrill from watching the birds work, from calling them in and seeing success in our set up, and from hamming it up with each other during the downtime.  Since I know Rory reads this, I’ll pump his tires by telling the Internet that he’s a crack shot with a crab apple and that he’s fortunate I have a sense of humour.  In two weeks we do it all again for geese and ducks, and this time with the added bonus of a new mourning dove season in our neck of the woods.  I can’t say with certainty that we’ll have more success or less, but we’ll have a time trying and it may even breed a story or two for this medium.

Still, I hope to hell that the birds play nice for an afternoon or two, because I can only write about pretty mornings, food, and defeat so often.

Fits & Starts, Tinkering & Fixing…and then Waiting

With just a few short days remaining until I get into my goose season here in Ontario and with it the unofficial “start of fall” for me, I’m just pacing around the house like a tiger in a cage.  I constantly wander around thinking about the upcoming hunt, planning for different weather contingencies, practicing my calling, and prepping and re-prepping my equipment.  I can’t do anything productive, and since I can’t do anything productive, I’ll just write about it.

A couple of weekends ago I went all out.  Using black potting soil I mixed up a few litres of mud and smeared them all over my layout blind.  Then when the mud dried, I went out and swept it all off.  Then I forgot that my blind was still deployed in my backyard and it rained on my blind for three days.  Now my blind isn’t shiny and new looking, but it does smell like rain and mud, and it leaves dirty stains on my clothes every time I pick it up.  Which are good things.  There is also a blind-shaped patch of dead grass on my back lawn.

Once my blind dried in my garage for three days, I tightened up all the screws, oiled all the previously wet hinges, and sewed a couple of seams (that’s right I can sew).  This sundry tinkering and busy work was a nice distraction for about two hours.  Then I sat in the blind to make sure I hadn’t made anything worse with my brainless fiddling and my hunger to get out in the field tripled.

I packed all the gear, minus my gun and shells, in my car, and then was forced to unpack it to go buy groceries.  Now I’ve packed it again and if necessary, my family can go hungry…because I’m not unpacking it again until it is time to put the equipment to use.

And put it to use I shall.  I spoke with some buddies today and the prognosis for the hunt is good; lots of geese milling around, a good selection of places to set up, and a whole lot of competition for the fields we want to hunt.  Since I have various and sundry goose hunting acquaintances, I have also been tantalized with pictures and stories of the various early season hunts they have been enjoying success with.  Even my cousin sent me a picture of a short hunt they had on their opening morning.  A smoldering desire to get out in the field is now a full blown inferno and it has made me so wretchedly unproductive that my career, marriage, and financial security are all in jeopardy.

Okay, so maybe not but you get the idea.

I had long hoped that this would be something that would improve as I grew older.  As a much younger person I used to be literally unable to sleep, such was the anticipation, and this really didn’t pose much of a problem when the next day held nothing other than hunting, napping, and eating.  But now I am nominally an adult, and as such I have responsibilities (or so they tell me).  I am accountable to a boss, several dozen clients, and perhaps most importantly a spouse and two young boys.  Shirking my duties because of hunting-anticipation-related-insomnia (which should be a clinically recognized condition, even though I just made it up) frankly isn’t an option.  Yet, I think I have diagnosed why this condition has not only failed to cure itself, but is actually becoming more and more debilitating.  It is because the frequency and duration of my hunting trips has become finite.  As child and teenager, I could (with adult accompaniment) go hunting pretty much whenever a mentor could take me, which was honestly quite often and very much encouraged (with the exception of deer camp, that rite of passage was reserved for a later, more hotly anticipated date).  Now, with the demands on my time being exerted by work and family, the prospect of time in the fields and forests is even more keenly anticipated.

I’m not from a particularly demonstrative family when it comes to emotions, but I feel as though my father, uncles, and other hunting mentors must have similar emotional responses to our family tradition of hunting.  It is just that none of them had a forum such as this (or perhaps the inclination at all) to speak about such childlike giddiness.

But I don’t mind, because in some respects the expectancy and desire have become part and parcel with my hunting experience.  Not only are the actual times spent in the field alone or with friends special, but the ways I pass the dreary days and weeks before hunting, what with all the toying with gear, and make the best laid plans, and yes even babbling inanely about how much I enjoy the anticipation, have all become part of the fabric of my hunting experience.

It is just what I do now.

So tomorrow, when 5pm rolls around, and the interminable meetings and prioritized tasks of my day job have been put mercifully to rest for another weekend then I will roll down the highway, listen to loud music, and practice train notes and push moans on my goose call every time I stop at a red light.  Because those things are part of the hunt for me.

Then I’ll arrive at the farm and I’ll lay out my clothes and equipment in a utilitarian (and ever so slightly superstitious) fashion.  Because those things are part of the hunt for me.

My cousins and hunting buddies will arrive and we’ll plan the morning’s agenda.  We may have a beverage or two and we’ll laugh a fair bit.  Because those things are part of the hunt for me and maybe it is for them too.

Then we’ll hunt, and we’ll eat, and then we’ll wake up and hunt some more.  And then, when it is all done, we’ll have the memories and we’ll have the best laid plans for the next trip in just a few short weeks.  The geese will be a little smarter and a little fewer (I hope) and we’ll be a little older, a little heavier, and a lot happier. And it is because we’ll be hunting together again, and that makes the anticipation, and the puttering around, and the all the mindless distractions we use to make ourselves happy in the off-season seem like distant foggy memories.

The return of hunting season just does that, and I am more than ready for it.

The Primacy of Waterfowling

As with most things you’ve read here, what follows is a matter of opinion.  If you and I are similarly-minded, then I imagine we are not going to have too much to debate in the below ramblings.  If we are found to not share such ideals, then I defer to the time-proven axiom of “to each their own” and I can still share the field with you if you’d have me.

I haven’t hunted African plains game, and may never get the chance. 

I am a neophyte by most standards in that I possess less than a decade in the turkey woods, although I am a full convert to that particular aspect of our religion. 

My deer hunting experience is of less than a score of years, which is as much an accident of birth and the public policy at the time of my hunting certification as it is a function of my love of stalking the ghosts of the fall woods. 

Small game was once a deep passion, although a shortage of suitable hounds and a personal disinclination as I grow older to spend time in cold winds and deep snow has dulled my desire to chase grouse and rabbits.  Perhaps the acquisition of a sleek beagle may rekindle those fires, but for now they smolder low.

Moose hunting, while available, has always played second fiddle to deer hunting for me.

Predator hunting, while exciting and raw, often lacks the payoff of promised game meat for the eating.

Elk, bears of all fashions, antelope, and the like are all unavailable to me, for reasons of logistics, time, and finances respectively.

What the list above details are two things.  First, there is a literal glut of riches available to the North American sportsman.  Secondly, at least for me, is that all of the above opportunities finish behind the pursuit of waterfowl as the act that most defines my hunting experience.

My dad is a deer hunter.  He loves the ducks dropping in and the geese turning and cycling down into a set up as much as I do, but if you asked him what he’d rather be doing, he would say deer hunting every time.  I’ve had similar conversations with a couple of my cousins and friends and they all fall on the side of deer hunting, although there are a few that are fast becoming converts to the hallowed tradition of chasing wild turkeys.

Perhaps it is my instinctual desire to dissent from the group, perhaps it is my relative lack of success in killing deer and turkeys, or maybe, like the Grinch, my head isn’t screwed on just right.  Whatever the case may be, hunting ducks and geese tops my list of preferred hunting trips, although that’s a lot like trying to rate pizza versus ice cream versus sex.  I suppose you could prioritize them if you wanted to, but you really would never turn any of them down.  Hunting is like that.

Carrying on.

It is true that I love waterfowling above all else, and frankly, what isn’t there to love?  Sure the weather can be awful, but at the end of the day, you don’t have to go out in it if you don’t really want to.  Yet time and time again, a multitude of duck and goose hunters are out in the most tragically terrible weather, getting frost-nipped, wind-whipped, and generally cold, soaked and miserable.  And why is that, you ask?  Two reasons: first the ducks and geese don’t seem to care; in fact it seems that often the hunting gets better the worse the climate is.  But the secret, untold second reason is that waterfowlers need that lousy weather to make them feel like they are truly ‘hunting’.  Just as deer hunters need the fall colours and the cool in the air, and houndsmen need the bay of a dog to set the atmosphere, so it is with the men and women that chase after webbed feet and billed birds.  I’ve had good shoots on bluebird days, but the best ones that I recall had some pretty drizzly, damp and all around unpleasant weather.  It just made it ‘feel’ right.

Another niche that I fit cozily into when it comes to duck and goose hunting is the calling.  Although a strong argument can be made on behalf of a gobbler, few other animals respond to calling and decoys like waterfowl do.  All my life I have been intrigued by the language of animals (and languages in general, but that’s another story), and the way that hunting allows me to more or less ‘talk’ with ducks and geese is a thrill that I simply cannot get enough of.  Listening to the birds as they work, and watching their body language as they respond positively and negatively to the sounds you are feeding them is both education and exhilaration.  My favourite memory from calling waterfowl came on a breezy, cool, sunny day in late September.  Our camp group was working a small flock of about nine geese, and they were making wide circles as they eyed up our spread.  As they made what turned out to be their second-last pass, I made a low moan on my call, and to my astonishment, one of the geese mimicked it exactly.  Not similarly, not comparably, but precisely the same note, tone, and duration.  Naturally, I made the same call again (which may shock those of my friends who accuse me of never making the same sound twice) and the goose answered back again with the same sound.  So back and forth for five or six more sequences this goose and I made the same sounds.  It would call then I would call the same note back, and as their broad circle tightened and then straightened into a final approach I had a ripple of adrenaline course through me.  I was talking this bird, and the group that was with it, right into where we needed them to be.  And that was the point.  We took home five or six out of the group, and while I scratched down one of them, I can’t say for sure if the bird I got was the one that was communicating with me, or whether that bird was even in the bag at all.  But it didn’t matter of course, because aside from the feeling of accomplishment that comes from tricking a supremely evolved specimen of wildlife into a trap, I knew that for even a few short minutes I was intentionally communicating with a wild animal using their language, which was beyond anything I had done or experienced before.

I consider waterfowl to be some of the most delicious wild game meat I’ve ever eaten.  And I’m going to go so far as to be on record say something that some may find controversial.  Geese are delicious too.  Now I’ve heard from reputable sources that speckled-belly goose meat is the height of epicurean delights, and I’ve had some of the best roasted ducks out there (although the orgasmically tasty canvasback has long eluded me) but foremost I think Canada geese get a bad reputation when it comes to the plate.  Now before I continue I will say this; I have eaten some absolutely atrocious Canada goose meat, but that particular platter was filled with birds that were primarily “suburban geese”, and I don’t mean geese with mortgages and family sedans.  I was hunting with a friend on a farm that was just barely beyond the city limits of Guelph.  I believe we were legally hunting by about 50 yards.  We were helping out a farmer that my friend knew, and he had often complained of the geese, so we took a trip out to thin the numbers a bit.  Upon scouting we found that the birds were spending most of their day at a local public park about three kilometers away.  We shot three or four and upon consuming them the next day, I can safely say I have never eaten any wild game as unpleasant as those few birds.  Although I think they were eating some grain on this farm, I attribute most of their flavour to them eating chemically fertilized grass and what I can only assume was their own feces for most of their days.  Really “wild” geese, the kind that truly migrate and spend limited time in urban/suburban areas have never troubled me with their flavour.  In fact, a good late season goose with a layer of corn and grain fed fat on them is so darn good roasted and stuffed with apples, lemons, and rosemary that I could never think of skinning them for their breast and leg meat.  Early season geese aren’t as succulent in terms of that, and they usually are still a bit “pinny” as we say, so more often than not that meat goes into the grinder, which isn’t a bad way to enjoy the fruits of a goose hunt either.  Last year we took a pin-feathered mallard drake that was not even two hours expired (talk about fresh organic!) and made a great little appetizer by butterflying the breasts and then pan frying them with the whole, skinned legs.  We rarely go hungry during duck and goose season.

The atmosphere of the goose hunt itself also endears it further to me.  I do enjoy the silent solitude of deer and turkey hunting, but silence is mandated by the nature of the prey.  Deer, and to an even greater extent, wild turkeys have incredibly acute hearing.  I’m not disputing the hearing of a duck or a goose, but I find the waterfowl hunting experience just slightly more gregarious for those doing the hunting.  First off, we almost always do this a pretty large group.  Five or more at a minimum.  It is just too labour intensive with decoys, blinds, guns, ammunition and the assorted paraphernalia to not have many hands to make the work light.  In fact some of us take it much lighter than others.  Secondly this group mentality makes it easy to have a good time.  We often just stand in a ditch or along a well-concealed fencerow and half-shout jokes and barbs at each other.  We tell amusing stories about our spouses, friends of friends, or the hunting companions that have gone before us, some of whom have sadly departed.  We laugh and giggle until we weep, we try out each other’s calls, and we generally have a raucous time, all the while eyeing the horizon and the heavens for birds.  When we miss, we taunt and deride each other’s failures as human-beings, and when we succeed everyone claims the credit simultaneously, particularly if one of the many birds that hit the ground is wearing jewelry.

Since some of us purchased layout blinds, the experience has changed only slightly.  We still do all of the above, we just do it from a reclined position.

I could wax poetic about the time-honoured history of waterfowling in North America, about how it built economies and industries, of how it nearly died as a tradition in the early 1900’s, and how it has staged a comeback.  I could tell the indigenous inhabitants of North America’s legends related to ducks and geese that I have learned.  I could write about the powers of survival possessed by ducks and geese (powers that I have read about, heard about, and witnessed personally).  I could go on at length about the conservation successes originated by Delta Waterfowl and Ducks Unlimited, and I could lecture on our need to be even better conservationists to preserve our privilege to keep hunting ducks and geese.  There is just so much to tell of and to write about.  I’ve had more hunts than I can literally remember, and I’m not even 35 yet.  Think of the stories I have and that everyone else has that go untold; those that hunker in saw grass blinds, corn rows, flooded rice, and sinkboxes.

I haven’t even talked about retrievers yet.

In the end though what I say is likely just things that have been said before and known of for ages.  For my part I don’t need convincing.  As someone who loves and studied history, there is just far too much tradition, both personal and in the preceding years for me to ignore.

For those that do need convincing though, think about those histories while you are making your own.  And going forward, when you watch them lock up and drop in, as you thumb off the safety, rise and shout “Take ‘em!” or “Now!” or “Cut ‘em!” or whatever it is that you’ve made your war-cry, make sure that you commit those ones to your memory too.

Because when the hunt is over, that’s all we get to hang on to.  Until the next day out duck hunting that is.

Perfect Moments of the Not-Too-Distant Past

As I write this, I’m sitting at Pearson Airport waiting for a flight to Montreal, but I’m really back at Saturday afternoon on the banks of a drizzly beaver pond, cold water dripping off the brim of my hat, straining my eyes for the slightest movement in the faded gray skies that frame the rust, gold, and brown leaves of the treetops.  Our group of six intrepid waterfowlers had kicked a few dozen mallards out of this hole on our way in, and we’d been waiting in vain for the last few hours for them to return as they usually do.  A misty drizzle became steady rain, and then became a misty drizzle again.  Once or twice it outright poured, and all the while a breeze hung around, becoming just strong enough to make the wings on the flapping decoy spin and to ensure that the parts of you that weren’t waterproof got clammy and cold.

Yep, it was a duck hunter’s kind of afternoon.  The ducks just hadn’t read the script.

At some point, almost through spontaneous regeneration, six hunters became eight and with nothing flying we just decided to stand around and trade stories and jokes.  Some of the boys had just got back from moose hunting, and there was ample entertainment from them.  Someone recited the clips from an offensive sound file they had received in an email, and we all laughed.  At one point something very funny was said, because I found myself in fits of hilarity while wiping away tears of laughter.  It is probably better that I can’t recall exactly what it was that made me break down that way, as I’ve found that airport boarding areas aren’t the wisest of places to begin giggling like a maniac.

Some ducks came in and a few fell, with Tack’s yellow Lab Levi making quick work of the retrieves.  Then we went back to standing around and telling stories and lies.  We milled around and carried on quiet personal conversations that were punctuated with group laughs.  We talked about hunting, baseball, women, new guns, new calls, and decoys.  We threw sticks in the pond and then did personal play-by-play as Levi negotiated the decoy lines and the submerged twigs as he fetched them.

Eventually the wind and rain frustrated us enough that we went and wrangled the dekes; with our guns slung over shoulders we headed for the trucks.

Here on Monday, they just called for priority boarding, but my mind barely acknowledges the announcement.  I’m in my memories from Sunday, when we went into a puddled grain field with high stubble and good cover in the ditch.  Misty fog wisped around, and once again prospects were good for some gunning.  Hunkered down in a line we scratched down a drake mallard that came screaming into one of the de facto ponds that were slowly but surely taking over the field; it almost didn’t matter that we missed the other six ducks that were with him.  To be fair we didn’t cover ourselves with glory on that performance, but we compensated on a low flying trio of geese that swung wide in the field before winging towards the gap we had left between the two dozen shell decoys.  Some clucks, moans, growls, and shotgun reports later, and none of them made their way out of the field.  A few more ducks worked the spread, but all high and wary.  Pleading comeback calls and raspy chuckles failed to persuade them and after countless circles they lit down in a deep, fast-moving ditch one field over.  Our man Hastings went on safari to jump them up, and as his reward he crumpled a brace of them for his game bag.  As flocks of dozens and dozens of ducks traded on an increasingly strong wind, the fog blew off but a rain was fixing to blow in.  With Hastings stalking the ditches a field over, and with Tack answering nature’s call well up the ditch, it was up to Rory, Dane, Lucas, and myself to work the calls on six big geese that broke away and once again made our fakes.  Just moments before we had failed to lure in a group of forty or fifty geese that showed interest, but just weren’t convinced.  This group though, were coming in on a wire.  Low finishing work on my Tim Grounds Super Mag combined with good calling from Dane on his GK Giant Killer and from Rory on his Doug Schuyler Voodoo Medicine Man sealed the deal and as the birds put their feet down at fifteen yards, we all began sawing away on our pump guns.  As two geese winged away we collected the ones that stayed behind and went back to the cover of the ditch.  As the rain began to fall we decided to call it a morning and after a picture or two we packed the decoys, weaponry, and our birds back to the trucks.  One large breakfast and one superb nap later, We cleaned up the farmhouse, packed up, and began the trek back home.  Hours of hunting, laughing, and being out in the wilderness all seemed to race by as we re-told the tales from the hunts, the details compressed in my mind by the fleeting enjoyment of it all.

And now, less than twenty-four hours later I find myself about to put away the laptop and wing my way east into la belle province.  The exigencies of career and parenthood will take precedent for a while longer.

But with any luck, it won’t be long until I’m back on a shore or aside a field, hands braced on my 870 Express, waiting for the birds to drop their flaps and put the landing gear down.  Like a golfer’s hole-in-one, those perfect moments of the past keep me chasing the next ones.

Shotgun Memories

It is always in the home stretch before a hunting season that I get all nostalgic about hunts gone by, and this year is no exception.  Some time ago, my father wrote a piece for the CK Times website (the link is here) about the things he had been privileged to see throughout a lifetime spent in the wilderness.  His lifetime is far from over (I hope) and he’s still making memories every year as he heads into his early sixties.  I’ve got a significantly longer time to go to even up with the years Dad has been hunting, and given the different paths our lives and careers are tracking on (Dad grew up in a rural village and spent 30 years working for Ducks Unlimited, where his work responsibilities often took him into the wild spaces he loves…I grew up in a mid-sized city and my job often takes me to airports, office high-rises, and business-level suburban hotels) it is unlikely that I’ll ever accumulate the literal decades of time that Dad has been in the woods, fields, and marshes.  Since I won’t equal his time afield, I thought I’d at least steal his premise for a post and talk about some of my fondest memories experienced while I was lugging a firearm through the wilderness.

First off, it may just be easier to tell you the fondest memories I have that don’t involve a hunting experience: my wedding, the birth of my two sons, and winning a couple of Regional soccer championships as a teenager.  Aside from those, pretty much everything else I hold dear to my mind involves guns, mud, blood, friends, fur, feathers, and the outdoors.  But here are some specifics to get you primed for the opening of whatever hunting season is coming up near you.

The very first morning I ever hunted turkeys, the dawn broke exactly how I figured it wouldn’t.  My idealistic mind pictured an early morning sunrise, with the glossy feathers of a hefty tom shimmering into view, and the big gobbler stopping in front of me and getting a headful of lead #6s.  After all, that’s how every turkey hunting video I had ever seen had run.  My experience was significantly different.  A low grey sky gave way to misty drizzle, and inside of ten minutes I was soaked in all the places that a hunter hates to be soaked.  The seat of my pants was dampened, but my hopes were not.  Then I heard it for the first time in the wild, the gobbling of tom turkeys.  They were the width of two fields away, and I never got a visual on them but they hammered away in ‘row-row-row your boat’ fashion for fully forty minutes.  I was hooked for life after that, and if you haven’t heard a couple of gobblers sound off like that through the fog and the mist, well, you haven’t lived.  That morning I even managed to call a tom in, but he obviously hadn’t seen all the hunting videos that I had…he stayed in the woods behind me and never came anywhere near where I could see him, let alone shoot.  I had other encounters in the other years since, but that first drizzly, misty, foggy, damp morning sitting on a vest-cushion with wet underpants as I listened to the gobblers do their thing was all I needed to know that I was doing something good with my time.

I had never seen geese side-slipping until my second or third season of hunting them, but the first time I saw it I think I actually shouted some term of wonderment out loud.  We were hunting a field in the days before layout blinds, and we were all safely stationed in the fenceline crouched under low shrubs or sitting in tall fringe grasses.  A gaggle (to use the term precisely) of geese were winging towards us, but I sensed from instinct that their flight path was taking them beyond us.  They were high and they were moving fast.  The one-by-one in a pattern that seemed both planned and utterly chaotic the birds began flipping over onto their backs, dropping speed and altitude with every barrel-roll.  My young eyes had never seen anything like it and I was in awe of this controlled plummeting.  As fast as they dropped in the birds set their wings and the contrast between their rapid descent and the near hovering that they did as they committed to the decoys had me completely bewildered.  Someone shouted to take them, and I managed to drop a single goose from the middle of the flock.  This was coincidentally one of the last, if not the final, time that lead shot for waterfowl was legal in Ontario so that hunt has some historical significance for me too.

Staying with goose hunting, the first time I had ever heard really, truly proficient calling for any type of game was on a goose hunt.  We had set up in a deep ditch in the Ferndale Flats on the Bruce Peninsula (the ditch being the only decent cover) and had put out a dozen or so decoys.  After some time, a line of geese on the southern horizon became visible, and they were making for our setup, or at least that is what I thought.  At about 200 yards or so, there arose such a sound from the next field east of us that I was sure there was another flock coming.  The most true to life clucks, moans, and bawls I’d ever heard drew the attention of the flock from the south and they swung wide of us before setting their wings and dropping to the field on our east side.  Six shotgun reports and a few falling birds later it became immediately apparent that a very accomplished goose caller was working the ‘field next door’.  So it went for a couple flocks more, and though we managed to score a few birds as they fled the gunfire east of us, it wasn’t the hunt for us that it could have been.  But it didn’t matter, at least to me, because my eyes had been opened to a whole new dimension of goose hunting.  After the hunt we waited on the side road for the other group, and as it turned out we had been hunting next to a championship-calibre caller: Craig McDonald.  He was hunting in the area with his Dad (they had a cottage in the vicinity) and while I was expecting an arrogant ‘professional’ (don’t ask me why) he was exactly the opposite; he was nice and humble and offered a few tips, and he had the nicest truck I’d ever seen to that time.  The next week I went out and got my first short-reed goose call, an instructional CD, and started to practice in ways that drove my girlfriend (now my wife) insane.  I’ve done a contest or two myself, but I’m still not even close the level of calling that we were treated to that day.  Nonetheless, I can pinpoint that hunt as the start of my obsession with game calls.  Now my wife knows who she can blame for the soundtrack to her life.

I may have told this story before, but with the early goose season looming, it bears repeating again.  On an early goose hunt in 2006 we spent the better part of a very hot September morning rolling hay bales into a makeshift set of blinds on a field that geese had been loafing in during the early afternoons and returning to in the evenings.  As with all things in goose hunting, as soon as the bales were setup, we went to get some lunch.  Wouldn’t you know it?  As soon as we drove off, forty or fifty geese dropped into the field to hang out.  We devised a plan of attack and secretly began a broad circle that led to us stalking from hay bale to hay bale until we were within sixty yards of the birds.  On a prearranged signal our friend Tack began herding the birds our way.  When he was just under a hundred yards from the birds they got up and began to head out.  They came our way broadside and a mere twenty feet off the ground.  Inside of fifteen yards Rory, my cousin Dane, and I opened up the shotguns; we had to wait that long just for them to provide safe shooting options.  I crumpled a bird with my first shot and then missed in the most embarrassing of fashions on my second and third rounds.  Dane and Rory both emptied their guns, and Rory managed to re-load and pop two more rounds as the birds put altitude and distance between us and them.  Angry at myself such atrocious shooting, I trudged out to pick up my goose.  I was dumbfounded to find that I was the only one picking up a bird: my cousin-Dane has a well-deserved reputation for being lethal with a shotgun, and Rory is no slouch either.  Yet here we were: eleven rounds spent and one goose to show for it.  Dane muttered various curses, exclaiming that he could see the tongues and eyes of the birds, among other things.  Rory blamed the soreness in his cheeks from wisdom tooth extractions performed just days before.  For once (and probably the only time since) I was able to look smug and bask in some accolades.  And the laughs…man did we laugh about that.  A while later, just as we were about to call it a night, a big flock came rocking and swinging into our decoys and we all redeemed ourselves, scratching down another eight birds.  That day at the hay bales was certainly one for the memories.

One of my fondest deer hunting memories isn’t even of hunting deer.  After a long cold day in an early November downpour, we had a sumptuous steak dinner.  We ate whipped potatoes, Brussels sprouts slathered in butter, sautéed mushrooms, and perfectly seared T-bones that were big enough to force all the other fixings off your plate.  Long after many others had turned in my cousin Luke, my brother Donavon, myself and the camp’s oldest member Frank Sweet turned off the generator, lit up Frank’s old Coleman lantern, and sipped cold beer while we swapped stories.  We talked about women, and hunting, and government, and literature, and told entertaining jokes and stories from our lives (although Frank had a significantly larger well of jokes and stories to draw from) while the rain fell on the roof and tinkled against the chimney pipes.  I don’t even recall what time we all eventually turned into our bunks that night (and the rain persisted to keep us all in camp the next morning) but I do recall thinking that there was no greater relaxation than just sitting around with the guys telling benign lies to each other, remembering girls we’d loved, and figuring out all of the world’s problems in one go through.  I was secretly sorry for those who never had (or never would) experience moments like that, and it was bittersweet to know that it was one of those perfect moments that would pass, and that I would spend the rest of my life trying to re-create it.  Frank would be taken away by heart failure the next spring and that just reinforced the fleeting beauty of the times spent in the hunting tradition.  The loss of a friend like Frank, while sad, also galvanizes me every year to go out and make as many memories count as I can.  And in less than two weeks my friends, my family, and countless others will re-embark on that journey.

Enjoy your journeys as much as I’ll enjoy mine and maybe I’ll see you in the fields.

When a Plan Comes Together

Angry clouds and teeming rain were my constant companions as I made the drive from Mississauga to Lion’s Head.  The opening of duck season, and the re-opening (after a five day hiatus) of goose season, loomed a mere 12 hours away.   We call it the “Double Opener Weekend” and it is cause for celebration and anticipation in our little group of diehard waterfowlers.  The weather was dirty, and the tiny engine of my Pontiac commuter car whirred loud in protest as I lashed it onward against crosswinds and standing water on Highway #6.  I already knew that this was to be the last Double Opener Weekend for the little hatchback, and it was stuffed to the gills with a layout blind, boots, snacks, beverages, and the various and sundry clothing, accessories, and bric-a-brac that weighs down a waterfowler’s vehicle and lays waste to their fuel economy.

I was battling the onset of a head cold and felt the pressure and fullness of it growing around my eyes and nose.  The barometer was playing see-saw and my sinuses and ears were alternating between drained and bursting for the duration of the three hour tour up to the camp.  I gnawed on jalapeno beef jerky and sipped fresh orange juice (a flavor sensation if there ever was one!) before stopping in to have a friend’s wife trim what meager hair I have remaining.  I sat and had a visit with them and their two children, before I stole my friend from his home and made my way to the cabin with him.

The cabin was raucous with the sounds of over twenty grown men laughing and telling stories, all shouting to be heard and trading innocuous verbal jabs at one another’s flaws, spouses, jobs, education, and hunting abilities.  The remains of what was once a few pizzas sat on a table while the rest of the spread consisted of chips and dip.  We shared drinks, cigars, stories, jokes, and remembrances, and we eventually devised the plans for the morning hunt.  Everywhere you looked there was wide-eyed joy and anticipation, good times, and that vague generalization known as “male bonding”.  I had been unable to attend last year and as I stood with one of my fellow hunters, each with a heavy arm around the other’s shoulder I was asked “Did you miss this?!”  My answer?

“Absolutely…but I won’t miss it again.”

5am arrived much too quickly and as my alarm hummed low, I shrugged on my hunting clothes and drove to the pre-determined meeting place.  I was to join the group with the layout blinds in the same fields we had hunted two weeks before.  The rain had stopped overnight but now low clouds promised a dim, grey start to this part of the waterfowl season.  We began to setup the blinds under clammy, cool skies and looked to get settled in.  The slightest hint of a south wind was blowing, and we expected the geese to swing in from the north.  What we did not expect was the pair of geese to come dropping in while we stood there grassing the blinds.  We dove into the blinds (my shotgun was not even loaded) and watched as the birds glided into the pocket.  One flared off and the other decided to leave as soon as his feet touched terra-firma.  As he climbed up out of the decoy spread, my cousin Dane’s shotgun barked once and the goose fell to the field, dead in the air.  We exercised a bit more haste in camouflaging the blinds and before long a single goose began to work the spread.  Again, Dane made a clean, single-shot kill as the bird circled to his left.  Shortly after that a group of four began to make for the spread.  Rory and I were in the central positions with Dane and Lucas hunting the ends of the line, and Rory and I scratched down three of the four birds.  Then, miraculously, the sun came out.  It was a good sign for the weekend’s weather to come, but a bad sign for the rest of the morning hunt.  As the sun’s strength grew and the clouds that had greeted the morning were chased off, large flocks of birds began to make wide swings away from our setup.  We called and flagged and called some more, but birds would circle high, showing lots of desire to be in the field, but also craning their necks from side to side and eyeing up the whole decoy spread before sliding off to other pastures.  We presumed that even though the blinds were reasonably well camouflaged, we could not hide the increasingly long shadows that the profiles of the blinds were casting into the decoy spread.  I find it no coincidence that all the birds were finishing perfectly under an overcast sky and circling high and flaring away in the sunshine.  One more group came just a little too close and we took one more bird from that group.  Coffee and a warm breakfast were calling so we packed up the gear and made for Mom’s Restaurant.

Saturday Morning's Take (L-R: Rory, myself, Dane)

We reconnoitered at Mom’s over home fries, eggs, bacon, sausages, and French toast, where we heard the stories from one group of our guys that had gone to hunt a fence line ditch nearby had managed two geese, while another small group that had gone to hunt a local creek and had taken in four mallards.  Not a stellar morning by any stretch, but still a good haul considering every group had made a run for breakfast by 8:30am.  Breakfast, as usual, was delicious and peppered with more laughter and tall tales.  Many of the breakfast laughs seem to be at my expense, but when you are as handsome and talented as I, you expect the jealous barbs of the less fortunate.

In the afternoon, after we had dressed out the morning’s take and done a bit of camp clean up, we decided to check out a couple of local ponds and creeks to see if any mallards were loitering around in them.  At our first stop we found a group of about ten milling about and we managed to bring six of them to hand, after Levi made his first water retrieves of his fledgling hunting career.  Of the four that escaped, we tracked their progress to a small pond just across the road, where we managed a further two.  That was plenty for us, which was good because we didn’t find any other ducks on that tour of the countryside.  A stop at a local cornfield brought interesting news as well.  The farmer had cut a sixty yard swath of corn out of the middle of the field and it had turned into a veritable runway/landing strip for geese and ducks.  At least 300 birds packed the length and width of the open area.  It was a spot ripe for a standing corn hunt.

The fruits of pond-jumping on Saturday afternoon

Back at the camp we cleaned out the ducks and I was tasked with their preparation for a late lunch.  Seasoned with salt, pepper, and steak seasoning before being generously pan seared, the freshest ducks imaginable made their transition from swimming in ponds to swimming in our bellies in a little less than two hours.  That is about as real “organic” as you can come by in my humble opinion.  We washed those birds down with some homemade chili from a large pot that Lucas Hunter had brought before calling the landowner, obtaining permission to hunt the cornfield (others had also asked to hunt there as well so in his own words, “first come, first served”) and then saddled up early for the afternoon hunt.  We wanted to make sure we got there first as it looked a very promising spot.  We did arrive first and set up a pretty nice spread of decoys before we lined up inside the standing corn, all facing north, with the wind at our backs.

Saturday Evening's Set-up

For an hour or so nothing was flying.  But soon enough the birds began to work.  The first couple of groups of geese swung out to the south before making a wide swoop and coming in from the north.  We got a couple from the early flocks, and didn’t exactly cover ourselves in glory on a single that was gliding in before he decided at the last minute that he’d go elsewhere.  The video is below.

Hastings and Rory went over to a nearby pond and kicked up a large flock of ducks and they began working our spread, circling five or six times (as ducks are apt to do) before swooping in to land.  We got five or six from that group, with a couple of guys making some pretty heroic shots.  Another goose or two came to hand and during a lull in the action I experienced two things that I had never seen before.

The first was when a hawk tried to dive bomb a pair of geese that were working their way towards our spread.  The hawk (of indeterminate species) had been cruising around the top of the corn rows for some time and as the pair of geese circled and began their final approach the bird of prey lunged up at the trailing goose, which expertly shed altitude to avoid the strike.  The hawk gave a short pursuit as the geese went into full acceleration, but the raptor gave up in seconds.  Of course this predatory action put the geese off the spread and we couldn’t plead them back.

The other thing that happened left me in awe, and is one of those stories that sounds like it is completely made up.  A single drake mallard came bombing into the spread at a speed that I’d never seen a duck attain.  I heard the bird first as it came in literally two feet over my head (and inches above the top of the corn) as the wind riffling through the drake’s wings made a sound that a surface to air missile.  I swear that as long as I’m living I won’t forget that sound.  It actually, genuinely scared me.  By the time I regained composure and made the target, it was beyond the outer edge of the spread.  It obviously startled a few of the guys too because no one could make a killing shot on it.  No one that is, except Tack’s dad Doug.  As the bird climbed and sped away from the spread Doug made a perfect shot to fold the bird up stone dead on the climb.  A chorus of cheers and congrats rained down on Doug and he quietly and reverently picked up the bird before slipping casually back into the corn rows.

More groups came in and we shot and we shot.  I ran out of shells; did I mention I had cracked a new box of 25 Kent Fasteel BB’s that morning?  Well I had.  With a half hour still to go until shooting light closed we called it an evening.  We had some immediate laughs and storytelling as we took some photos and packed up once more; dinner was waiting in the form of the morning’s haul of goose meat already cut into strips, with some marinating in Italian salad dressing and the remainder soaking a mesquite barbecue sauce.  These were all waiting to be rolled in thick cut, apple-smoked, peppercorn crusted bacon.  There was also some coleslaw, some French fries, and the remainder of the chili.  And maybe a beverage or two.

Yours truly watching the northern sky on Satruday afternoon

Donavon with a mallard on Saturday afternoon

We made our way back to the camp, and while some did the butchering others prepared the food.  Stillness descended over the camp once the food came out, and hungry men filled their bellies.  The evening was more subdued than the prior night, with an air of satisfied calm at the great day of hunting dominating.  Hunters said their piece and slowly shuffled off to bed, but not before we resolved to send a skeleton crew back to the same field in the morning.  As I drifted off to bed I could still hear the honks of geese and the reports of shotguns in the back of my mind; I love it when those are my last thoughts before falling into a slumber borne of an early morning and all-day hunting.  The weather could not have been any better, the birds had flown well, and the shooting had been above average; it was truly one of our best days of hunting as a group.

Sunday morning was a non-event.  Not much was flying and we had the sense that we’d shot enough geese and ducks for the weekend.  The day broke foggy with a great sunrise, but by 8am we had one goose to show for our efforts.

A foggy morning's walk into the field

No one was upset.  We’d achieved everything we had set out to do; we’d had some laughs, spent time together as friends, and had a hunt that was one of the best we’d had for a Double Opener Weekend.  Camp clean up chores followed fast on the heels of another epic Mom’s Restaurant breakfast.  There were high fives and handshakes all around before we put down the bear mats and closed up camp.  By mid-afternoon on Sunday I was back on the road to Cambridge in need of a nap, a shave, and a car wash.  In a year’s time we’ll be back at it again; I hope the future can only hold a hunting weekend as good.

I might be overstretching my anticipations by hoping for a better one.

**All photos and video courtesy of Lucas Hunter**