Wednesday, November 9, 2005

Fall tom at last and goose sneak attack Well, I'm back from North Dakota. Have been for two weeks, actually. Been digging out, catching up, moving on... I never did finish blogging our great duck hunt, but if you read Wisconsin Outdoor News, the Nov. 18th issue will carry a story I wrote about that hunt. Here's a quick summary: Day 1, we shot a pile of mallards, a bunch of gremwings and seven snow geese, then after lunch we shot a bunch of pigeons by kicking grain silos and storage barns. Day 2, we shot another pile of mallards, a pair of pintails and another handful of snows. Day 3, the mallards had disappeared; Mike, Rick and Steve sneaked a flock of snows and shot 10. Then we packed up and headed for home, with promises to do it again sometime, maybe next year. OK, here's part of catching up. Last Saturday, I shot an adult gobbler, a two-year-old most likely. Had hunted Friday morning for the first time seriously. Saw a flock of hens and two small bucks, not to mention several hundred Canada geese. Went to another spot that afternoon, where a friend had seen 10 toms. Heard one fly up to roost but never saw him. Saturday morning, set up in the same area and heard at least two talking behind me. I yelped back and got them talking to me for a minute or two. Then they flew down into the marsh. I walked a big circle to learn the marsh, woods and field edge of this place I was hunting for the first time. Strolling back through the spruce grove where I had heard the toms earlier and had heard one fly to roost the night before, I flushed a bird out of a tree at 8:00 a.m. This was probably the bird I had heard fly up the night before. Unusual that it was still in a tree two hours after first light. Unusual, but not unheard of. Went home, puttered around on the computer, then went back to hunt again about 3:00. A storm was on the way, had already brough hail and high winds to Waukesha County. I set up at the north end of the spruce grove, with the edge of the swamp in sight. Thought I heard a cluck after about 15 minutes, so I hit my jake call a couple times. Next thing I knew, this tom was eyeballing my position from 20 yards. He didn't like what he saw and slowly headed back toward the swamp. It was now or never, I figured, so I swung 90 degrees to my right, leaned forward to see around a tree and shot him. He flopped a good five minutes, though he had taken the 2-oz. load of 6s full in the face. I tried to hold his wings against his body to keep him from thrashing around too much, but could barely conntain him. The vitatlity of these birds continues to amaze me. Got him tagged and wrapped in the Sling-It (See "Mall" on my Web site.) just as the rain started. I got wet hoofing it back to the truck, but it sure felt good knowing I could sleep in on Sunday instead of heading out in the wind and rain. As it turned out, Charlie and Gail Thon hunted ducks on Sunday and shot a pile of mallards and greenwings. Charlie invited me to join him this morning, as Gail had to work. We left Cedarburg at 4:00 a.m., towing Charlie's 12-foot jonboat, and launched it an hour later on a river I promised not to name. By 5:45, we had run a couple miles upstream and set out a dozen mallards and a dozen teal decoys. When shooting time arrived shortly after 6:00, small squadrons of teal began to buzz us. With the low light and winds already gusting at 25 mph or so, I couldn't get my muzzle ahead of the danged things. Charlie shot a couple times in vain. By the time we could see clearly, the teal stopped flying. About then, a small flock of giant Canadas landed on an island a couple hundred yards upstream. When it was clear the teal were done flying and there would be no mallards today (Where do they go so suddenly?), we decided to sneak the geese. Charlie crawled along the river directly upwind of the birds, while I made a big circle through the marsh. As I approached the river, a couple geese honked, tipping me off to their exact position. I thanked them and duck-walked to within 5 yards of the river, silently repeating "Head down, pick one bird." The sun at my back would be in their eyes. Then I jumped up, took a couple steps toward them, and they flushed, honking madly. I fired at one bird, then fired again, but missed both shots. Then realizing I had my head up, watching for the goose to fall, I brought my cheek down to the gunstock and blotted out the bird. It fell stone dead in the river at my third shot. Then I watched the flock head downriver, straight at Charlie. He fired twice, and one bird toppled from formation. (In my haste to pack gear the night before, I had neglected to replace the turkey choke in my shotgun with a modified tube. When we reached the river, I unscrewed the turkey tube and left it in the car, wondering what dhooting Hevi-Shot through a cylinder bore would do to birds and gun. It did fine on the one goose I shot at, and apparently didn't hurt the gun, as I was able to reinsert the turkey tube at the end of our hunt.) After we collected our geese, the wind redoubled its force, so shortly we picked up the decoys and motored back out. The wind had to be blowing a good 40 mph by then. Cattail fluff was flying sideways like a blizzard of snowflakes. The temperature had also dropped to the promised 40 degrees, and we were getting chilled. When Charlie and I walked into the Cracker Barrel in Menomonie Falls at 10:30, the young waitress reached for lunch menus, then took one look at us, grabbed the early menus and said, "You want breakfast." "You're good!" I told her. She just smiled, almost smirked. No doubt other guys in full camo had wandered in at mid-morning, looking cold and hungry and full of stories I suspect she didn't care to hear.  Later... 8:26:43 PM    comment []