Roberts Bank trying Goose Bar this weekend

[silveragent]

Was up at Roberts bank on Sunday. Only saw one flight of snowies and no canadas at all from 9:30-4. No joy :( Only success was in trying out some foam decoys that were super light and easy to set up and stake down and looked great. And of course getting ass wet and talking a lot. If you recall Sunday had a downpour all night until after daybreak but it lightened up at around 10 and it was a nice cloudy day for the rest. I guess the geese did not want to get wet that day.

A group of us are trying Goose Bar this Sunday with canoes just for a change. None of us have much experience but it will be a change.

[BigD_83]

Thanks for the report. I didn't bother trying to get out last weekend as I was without a partner and didn't feel like being miserable by myself :)

Where is Goose Bar?

[silveragent]

Goose Bar is a little strip of an island in the middle of Pitt River. You get to it by going up Pitt side up Harris Road to the end. We made a hair-raising attempt to cross the river yesterday morning. The current and wind picked up a third of the way across and we were slipping so badly and getting rocked we wisely took the coward's way out and turned back. That would have sucked if three of us had gone into that River. I don't like my chances of getting to shore with rubber boots on even with a float vest (which we all had). The boat that stopped to let us go were probably hoping they wouldn't have to stick around to rescue us.

That was a shame because with binocs I could tell there were Canadas already resting on the island itself and as we were preparing saw maybe 30 Canadas coming down the Pitt River.

We went back to Delta and saw some snowies but by then it was noon. They weren't landing. We pulled up stakes when that mid-afternoon chilling rain started pounding down (though in retrospect we should have waited 30 minutes as it became gorgeous again after). No Canadas that side.

[guest]

Sounds like you made a good choice, at least your safe. Many of us make wrong decisions just for our fish or game.

Had ad you guys crossed and hammered them geese, you would have been that much heavier coming back. Those that may say chicken .......... Need to give their heads a shake.

Better er luck next time.

just last week a young 22 year old lost his life on the Vedder, condolences to his family and friends.

[silveragent]

Yea in the back of my mind I kept thinking how I didn't want to end my life marked by a miserable little article in the Province!

[silveragent]

I don't want to get too far off topic but one of my good friends from high school died in a misadventure (drowned in Lynn Canyon cliff diving - after his death - and that of his girlfriend in the same incident, they put up those warning boards you see today) and ended up on the front page of the Province. I've always connected that with the horrible experience of attending his open casket funeral and saying goodbye with his family. You can't imagine how miserable that experience was. It made me allergic to taking that kind of risk unnecessarily.

[silveragent]

My group and I finally got lucky! This was almost our 12th attempt and we nearly packed it in too early. We kept adjusting our blinds and moving our decoys closer and tried out our miserable calling - I'm crap at calling and my friend is marginally better. But I think randomly a snow goose flight of about 30 decided to come low over us and we let them have it. I can't believe how brimming I was in excitement seeing three of those birds fall. One for each of us three after two years of trying.

And because we didn't have dogs then came the next thirty minutes of trying to find all of them. One we found right away and our new member - who only got his CORE a month ago sheesh - tackled that one and bled it out. I had a more fun time trying to run down a winged one that did not want to give up. Here I am in waders falling all over the place chasing it down. I finally made a dash and gathered it up. It took a long time dying. Whether it was just nerve impulses or not even after I wrung its neck it refused to stop twitching. I finally drowned it. Another fifteen minutes later we finally found the third which was stone dead. Unfortunately, none of us will likely be able to get dogs in the future so I guess we have to get good at watching where they fall.

I think I'm still excited today thinking about how it went down.