Family Goose Hunt
…wanting to do a little family-time outdoors, before deer activity heated up, we opted for a canada goose hunt when the season opened in our area…thanks to a deer-less, morning bow hunt, I was able to zero in on a small flock of birds nearby making use of a bean field not far from where my tree stand hangs…once I figured out who owned the field, made contact and got permission - we have some of the nicest landowners in Nebraska – the real work began…
Mudding the Blind
…since our last move nearly 3 years ago, my wife and I have not chased honkers – something we were able to do quite a bit prior to the change of location…we have the gear, we just had to find it, or at least some of it…what we didn’t have on our last several goose hunts was our kids, at least not in the field – keeping them concealed & comfortable during the hunt was a priority…for this we turned to 3 layout blinds – what a wonderful invention!…actually designed for a lone, adult hunter we figured that we could cram a 7-year old & a 4-year old into one of them, along with enough snacks, toys and bug juice to meet our needs…we were close to correct – the swinging front doors on the blind proved to be an attraction for the kids, too…
Setting the Spread
…the day of our hunt started in the dark with camo’d kids and a hunting rig filled to capacity – there were even goose decoys sitting in our laps…some of us were very happy to arrive at our chosen field and begin the unloading process…first came the blinds, we tossed them out in the general area we thought was our best chance to lure geese and hide us, then came the placement (& re-placement) of decoys, then we we began the process of putting corn and bean stubble on the layout blinds to help hide them even more…
Waiting for Birds
…with the scene set we got the vehicle out of the field and were making our way back when we heard the first ‘ker-honk!” of the morning, turning the final 100 yards to the blinds into a sprint – I am pretty sure that our 4-year old daughter’s feet touched down every 20 yards or so as Mom was holding her hand as she made the fastest run of her adult life…we never saw that goose nor the many others that were using the field just the evening prior, but we did work some birds in between the nearly constant question-asking & in-blind, brother-sister squabbles…a pair of canadas gave us the most promising look but landed well outside our spread and spent 20 minutes feeding & watching us…despite the absence of gunfire the day was a success – 0ur son summed it up best at the end of the hunt when he said “Goose hunting is the most fun. Let’s go again.“…you know, I think we will…
Jumping the Decoys
hershy
