A Good Start To The Season

**Mike Bard** · #1 09-05-2007, 09:47 AM

DATE: September 1, 2007

LOCATION: Northern NY

SUNRISE: 6:27 am

WEATHER: Clear

TEMPERATURE: 45 - 55 degrees

WIND: Calm

EQUIPMENT USED: Avery® Floating Pit Bag, Avery® Floating Blind Bag, Avery® Pro Camera Bag, Avery® Power Hunter Blinds, Avery® Finisher Blinds, Avery® Finisher Dog Blinds, Avery® KillerWeed All-Terrain Blind Kits, Avery® Fleece Vest, Avery® Fleece Skull Cap, Avery® Game Hog Straps, Avery® Floating Gun Cases, Greenhead Gear® Full Body FFD Honkers, Greenhead Gear® Full Body FFD Lessers, Avery® DIY Call Lanyards, Avery® Power Flags and Avery® Field Staff Cotton Caps.

HUNTERS: Arliss Reed, Rick Murphy, Frank Clifton, Carl Cranker, Liz Cranker, and Avery® Pro-Staffer Mike Bard

DOGS: Coot (Rick’s BLF) and Moxie (my CBR)

JOURNAL NOTES:
After a couple weeks of planning and some hard scouting by the entire group, Frank and I decided to travel north for our early goose opener to hunt with our buddies Arliss Reed and Rick Murphy, in a cut wheat field that had been popular, among the local geese in the area, the previous two weeks. Knowing others had permission to hunt this farm, we left my house about 1:30am and headed north to stake our claim and get set up.

We set about 50 full body decoys, mainly feeders to appear like a few groups had landed and were feeding with another group of actives to appear as they were walking in to the feeding circle. In retrospect, given the size of the groups of geese that visited our spread, we should have created a more open hole for incoming geese to land in. Given there was really no wind, we elected to set our blinds where we could see the birds approach from their roosting areas and where the sun would be slightly to our backs and in the birds eyes. There was plenty of wheat straw/stubble in the field to mix in with the KillerWeed already on our blinds to blend into the sparse cover in the field. This set, created more of a crossing shot, as the birds would come into the decoys semi-blinding them as they landed into the rising sun.

Spread Pictures

As scouted, the birds began to approach the field from the areas we anticipated and close to the time we expected. They came in groups of 4 to 40+ for nearly 45 minutes. The speed and close proximity in which the groups came made it difficult to allow our two young retrievers, even with our help, time to pick up all the fallen geese and be set for the next group or set of groups. This is a good problem to have though, so no one was complaining. Very little flagging and calling was needed to entice the geese onto the X, but both were affective in getting groups to circle back around for a second shot at them. The hunt came to an end in less than an hour with 37 Canada geese harvested, 6 happy hunters and 2 tired dogs.

Hero Shot

All in all, a great hunt and to my memory, the best early goose opener I’ve ever participated in. The extensive scouting paid off and the decision to head north was right on.

Packing up

*NY State Early Goose Limit is 8 geese per hunter per day.