A Waterfowlers Reality... Nodak 2012 Early Goose Hunting

[Shane Z]

As my buddy and I took off at 10 pm Wednesday evening. We knew that it was going to be a sleepless night of "blind" scouting and setting up before daybreak. We weren't expecting much that morning due to the fact that we had arrived there around 3am and had done no bird scouting but we trusted our gut instinct and set up anyways. As day break came, we hadn't seen much action. Ducks circled us, and we had about 9-10 flocks land in our spread, but still no geese. Then behind us we heard honking. A group of 7 were "B" lining to us! AS they set their wings about 100 yards out, we new that it was finally season. We were able to take 3 out of the flock and were pretty darn excited that our hunch paid off. As the morning grew longer, we decided to pull the spread and started to go scout. The next couple days were trying, as many of the local birds were difficult to pattern and often times headed in different directions off the roost each morning. the second morning, shadows from our blinds gave rise to birds finishing well (flaring). It's a hard battle when digging isn't an option and the sun is your enemy (casting shadows). Finally, the last evening and morning we were on some birds but there was a weather front that pushed them hard that night. The last evening hunt was the best we had the entire trip. My buddy, who had to run to the truck missed out BIG TIME. Geese from every direction started to come in, leaving me the only one to reap the benefits. I ended up with 12 geese that night by myself. All in all we ended up with 32 honkers out of 3 hunts. I learned ALOT this trip and can't wait to get after the Minnesota birds in less than 2 weeks from now!!

If it weren't for all the lessons learned each time I go out waterfowl hunting, I probably wouldn't love the sport so much. More times than non, my hunt doesn't turn out to what I had hoped I'd be, but there's those times when EVERYTHING seems to fall into place.

[carpshooterdeluxe]

Good stuff. Run into many other hunters out there?

[Shane Z]

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty quite. Mostly locals, but as the weekend approached, there were trucks with trailers everywhere.

[GooBack]

Keep practicing. Some day you'll get it!