crappy morning

[frabillfisher]

I'd like to here how everyone did this morning on geese....to see how unlucky i was...got up dressed had everything ready to go then i see lightning in the distance...been raining ever since...wat a crappy opener,might make it out to night though if it clears a little...how much fun did you guys have??

[Trany]

Skunk, we spooked up about 50 when we were crossing the water 5am'ish. Other then that no action and only a few solo's and small flocks flew over or near the lake.

[catmaster1557]

Got 4 this mornin 3 guys hunting. Saw about 18. Hunted near Searles.

[WalleyeWeasel]

Do the geese fly in this stuff!! And if they do, would it be wise to go near water, pass shoot (as i have no water decoys and it's not boat accessible)and maybe catch the flocks going to evening feed. Also reverced in the a.m. ?? This is the only way for me to hunt.........

[rattlem'up]

Didn't do too bad In Glencoe. Shot 8 Geese 15 min into shooting hours with 3 guys. then moved to a alfalfa feild and blasted another 8 with 4 guys! after 12 storms moved in and we called er a day. cant wait till mornin

[kc0myy]

I was out delivering pizzas today. Around the Annandale area. I always saw a small flocks of 4-6 sometimes 2-3. I didn't go out today. I am under 18 so all I need is a FED stamp to hunt geese in early season right???

[benelli_dude2002]

Two of us ended up with 5. Seen hundreds of geese but most where about 1/2 mile to the east of us. I stayed home this morning. Marinated the breasts overnight and gonna throw them on the grill today. Hunting was okay but man there was alot of geese out there. Got them with my 3 inch Montefeltro, the geese came so close you could knocked them down with small shot but BBB was used. Lotsa mallards and even seen a few pintails here on the wouth shore on LOTW. Good hunting y'all! Brian

[blacksheep]

benelli_dude2002 - if you don't mind, i have a few questions for you. could you email me.

(josh belmore 81 at yahoo dot com)

thanks - josh

[ikes71]

We did ok, got 5 total between two guys. The geese didn't show up until just after 8am, had two small flocks come in. We pulled out after 9:30am, had to help finish bringing all of the hay in. I did notice that at 11am a big flock came in to the pond just down from where we were hunting. There was about 50 birds in that flock. Will be busy chopping corn, so my goose hunting will be on hold until that is done. Then it becomes primetime! The numbers just multiply.

[gorrilla]

We had our best morning ever on Canadas. By 7:15 opening morning we were walking back to the truck with our 25 birds for 5 guys. The next day we had 11 by 8:30. Like Hanibal from the A-Team says, " I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER!!"

We were in 400 acres of wheat North of Detroit Lakes and South of Thief River Falls. Happy hunting guys.

[Tom Wilson]

Rattle,

Do you happen to recall if there was a silver truck pulling a large grass covered duckboat pulling away from the access and driving up the road behind you right as those birds were sitting down on top of you. If that was you guys we were leaving right at the time those birds, were working you, but we couldn't see you from where we were until right at the time we were coming up the hill and you guys went to shooting at them or we would have sat and waited. At least we didn't mess that up for you, good shooting Man.

[rattlem'up]

yeah that was us! After we had shot those my buddy was sayin that there was someone watchin us behind the hill. HOw did you guys do? we havn't been back to that spot now since that day so dont know if anythings been flyin there. we ended up with 5 yesterday(sunday) and then 3 this morning. wonder where they all went. But i sure can't wait till the bean fields come out we have some killer spots again this year.

[cmoredrakes]

our group got 19 the first day out of 5 guys. The birds worked awesome!! in your face action the whole time we were out there. We had all of our birds down by 8:30{am} and then we sat around for a couple of hours just to enjoy the sweet weather before it started raining . today we got 10, by 9:00{am} overall it was a great weekend. it payed to do all of that scoutin' ahead of time. We got lucky, we found this straw field and the first day we saw it, it was full of geese. the landowner said he'd been seeing them for about two weeks when we arivved to set up the night before.

[Tom Wilson]

For the first time in four consecutive years--we got skunked. Never fired the gun. There were a ton of birds there on Saturday morning, but we had someone set up about a hundred yards behind us and every time they would start to circle downwind to come back the moron would start shooting. I mean calling it skybusting would be an understatement. He was shooting at birds well over a hundred yards from him. He fired every time geese came within 150 yards of him. I'm not sure whether it was for spite or complete ignorance. He never called all morning, so I'm thinking he might have been a beginner and was just stupid to hunting. Yesterday morning, we only saw about three small groups--they definitely moved. I hate to beg, but I have knocked on a lot of doors out there and have never been given permission to hunt fields. If you guys ever have an open spot I sure would like some new hunting buddies. I'm also an accomplished photographer if you guys would like some cool photos of your hunts. I'll be back out there on Wednesday morning. I'll let you know how I do.

[IceHawk]

Well the early season goose hunt started off with a bang for my group of 5. We had our limit of 25 birds on Sat morning by 8.00 am. Our preseason scouting really paid off we gained access to a prime feeding field that the birds had been feeding in and it paid off. We did get a few more birds Sunday morning before we decided to pull up stakes and let our fields rest for future hunts. Good luck to everyone on there future hunts!!!

[Quackaddict9]

our group of 4 went out on saturday morning and set up and then when the sun came up we figured this wasnt any good, we had been too close to the road so it didnt work out great but we saw alot of geese and only had 2 come in and shot 1. later for the evening hunt 2 of us went out and shot 4 more. The next morning we went to a different field and met some guys that had permission to hunt the same field too [they said they shot 20 saturday am.] and said they were going to be there (East of where we were going to hunt) so they suggested us a another good spot on the other side of the field and we went there and had other people about 500 yds SE of us and they had the first goose that came in their spread and got er'. there were alot of geese wanting to land where the hunters were (East) and they would get 2 or 3 every flock that came in so it was kind of hard for us to get geese in our spread and finally we had a flock not too high come over us behind us and we downed 2 birds... then flocks would come our way and they would commit to other hunters (SE) spread [they werent calling] and we worked hard to call them in and flagging paid off and they changed directions commited ot ours and came in and shot 9 more so we finished off with 11 geese on sunday morning and then we went out for the evening hunt the same spot as sat. evening and shot 2 more so we finished off with 18 birds.. not too great or bad, just average. It was a great weekend even though we could have shot more and the birds were commiting to the other hunters spreads so it was kind of hard to get them in our spread, but alot of geese flying all over and non stop action.. also alot of ducks coming in early am. Hope everyone did well and had fun even though the geese are still going in the same fields after 2 days of shooting, will definitely be out this weekend. Good Luck to you guys!

[rattlem'up]

yeah i'd like to put together a hunt sometime. i have an awsome goose spot when the fields come out. But we dont really have a decent spot for ducks we should get together and do like a trade a hunt type deal u take me and a couple guys duck hunting if you've got a spot or 2 and we'll take ya goose hunting.not sure when the beans are gonna be out yet kinda shootin for regular season but might get' er on the weekend of the 17th. let me know how u do wednesday i'll be up at school in St. cloud but i'll be back friday night.

[bigeyes]

We ended up with 5 saturday morning and 10 on monday. I don't think anybody was crazy enough to go out on Sunday morning in the metro. Had lots of fun, can't wait tell next weekend.

[eyepatrol]

We didn't fair real well, but it was sure nice to finally get out and get "a fix". We ended up getting one goose, shot by yours truly. Went out in the water to move some dekes around and then as we were out there, noticed a flock of 5 coming right at us. That was a bummer....we were caught red-handed. Then a while later a flock of 8 were headed right at us about 300 yards out and only a couple feet off the water when guys on a different spot on the lake started shooting at some geese. So, that was the end of that flock. Had some looks from other flocks, but it just didn't pan out.

There was probably 100 geese or more on the lake that took off when a truck drove along the shore a little before shooting hours. Most of the geese came back to the lake, but they went to the same spot they took off from. Unfortunately, the guys in the truck didn't set up in the spot the geese were sitting early in the morning. So, that provided a pretty nice safe-haven for the birds. Every flock that returned to the lake went straight for that spot, and every other flock that didn't appear to be local to the lake joined in with them. Pretty hard to compete with live birds!!

Still, we had a great time watching the geese, ducks, and talking about the good 'ol days gone by. Re-lived a lot of hunting stories. Good thing we had chest waders on because the bull$#*% was getting pretty deep!

[Captain B.R.K]

Back from a semi successful hunt this weekend. Hunted NW of Alexandria for 3 days and between 5 guys we got 9 geese for the weekend. Granted we only got 2 quality times in the field.

Saturday morning we got out, got our decoy's out and within in hour we were off heading home due to the severe weather that went through that area. Neat to see all the lighting storms to our North, but a system developed right over our heads that morning and less than as it went about a mile past us, lighting started to strike the ground...YIKES

Saturday evening turned out to be a great evening and we got 3 geese to come into our decoy's. Should have had more, but what can I say.....first time getting out and had to practice my shot.

Sunday morning we got again and had quite a few birds fly over and take a look at our spread. We ended up with 6 birds all together. Sunday night we decided to do some fishing since it got so hot and humid out.

Monday morning we tried it again for the last time and the mosquito's were fierce, the wind was nil and it started to lighting, hitting the ground at times, about 1-2 miles away so in 45 minutes of hunting we packed up and headed home.

A guy wishes one had more opportunties to shoot at some flocks, but then again 9 birds is a lot of goose meat to take home and eat. Fun to be out again.

The storms did make it interesting, but frustrating as we didn't get to hunt a lot and the times we were out before the storms NO birds were in the air flying.