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View Full Version : A LOOONG Opening Day



longshot
02-11-2012, 07:37 PM
Well, it always seems that on every opening day... nothing goes completely according to plan?!?!

Today myself, my dad, and my 6 year old brother Anthony headed out to our exclusive goose hunting field. There had been some promising sightings in the grass area in the past week.

We got to the field at the crack-o-crow fart, and set up our rig. The geese were a little slow coming off of the roosts and we didnt see anything until mid-morning. Then FINALLY flocks of lessers, greaters, you name it, started entering the field.... AND NOT A DAMN BIRD WOULD COMMIT!!! We had them come straight at us, then go off course around the 80 yard mark... it was very frusterating. After like the 6th flock we finally had a group round into the 35 yard mark, so we "leaned" on them real good and scratched two out.

While we are all puzzled to why the birds went commiting, I went out and reset the decoys in a whole new manner. This made most, but not all, the geese for the rest of the day commit like they do in October... And now the bad shooting streak starts... :confused: We had geese lining up 15 yards infront of our feet, and apparently (250 x 6...) 1500 pellets isnt enough to even make a mark on one bird!! We even had a single commit and 6 shots left the bird unmarked... kinda embarassing lol. :cry: All well, I guess everyone has their off days..

So we had a break, ate some lunch, drank some coke, and prepared for the afternoon birds... at thats when it all came together! We had a steady flow pairs and triples commit right into the pocket and we gathered our 2 man limit with so-so shooting from the shooting department..

So basically between a bad morning rig, and some TERRIBLE shooting, we still managed our 10 birds... even though it sounded like WW3 :? !!

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/hunting_Fab_11_001.jpg

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/hunting_Fab_11_002.jpg

I'm sure next time things will be a little smoother, but hey, every opener seems to have its issues lol!

Cant wait to get right out there for more!

Longshot jr.

WestCoastTodd
02-11-2012, 08:31 PM
Sounds like a hell of a good day to me! I hope you've got lots of room in the freezer.

cavebear
02-11-2012, 08:38 PM
right on nice take gents

Andrewh
02-11-2012, 11:19 PM
were you only using those two decoys?

Dutch
02-11-2012, 11:44 PM
So how many goes for the 10 ??? good day congrats

longshot
02-12-2012, 12:03 AM
were you only using those two decoys?

Definately not! We hunt our birds with a minimum of 14 decoys, most of which are GHG FFD full bodies. I just have those 2 in the pic for decorations, haha.

Marc
02-12-2012, 12:04 AM
I could hear you guys as I was working around the yard, couldn't hear any geese honking though.

Looks like you guys had a productive day overall.

porcupine
02-12-2012, 12:09 AM
Glad to hear of your success. Didn't go out today myself as I've been shooting geese this past week on a crop damage permit and wanted to give others a chance! Keep up the good work!

longshot
02-12-2012, 12:14 AM
I could hear you guys as I was working around he hard, couldn't hear any geese honking though.

Looks like you guys had a productive day overall.

Ya... it must have sounded like a war zone! Oops, but for some odd reason it just seemed hard today to get that bead on them :confused: Usually we'll shoot 10 geese in about 15 shots to keep the noise down.

Tanya
02-12-2012, 07:06 AM
Well Jr., way to persevere. Those days happen for sure. Not surprised that you didn't see any early on. I drove down south to Mill Bay on Friday and saw lots of birds airborne at 9:30 a.m. Now that they are stirred up a bit it will be interesting to see what happens.