2007 Early goose season ...

[R.J.]

We scouted out a couple of fields yesterday ... one field had lots of birds feeding in it but no one was around for us to get permission ... found another field that had a couple of birds going to it so we set up there this a.m.

It was very hazey and warm .... not much of a sun rise to speak of .



We set up in a corn stubble field at a Menonite farm ... with 2 small bird group shooting stations ...

My station ....



Randy's station ...



It wasn't hard to see what the birds had been feeding on ...




I brought Sally and Spike along for some exercise ...

Sally watches Randy while he raises the gun ...



Spike watches Sally ...



Spike follows Sally everywhere ...



Sometimes he gets left behind and has to do double time to keep up ..



Back to the geese .... The main flocks headed out over the ridge , but we did have 2 small groups swing by , and we grounded a limit out of them ... ( sorry , no flight or fall pictures this round ... was busy with the gun ! )

I did manage to get a triple though ! .... nice to get one on opening morning ...



Sally doesn't always see Spike when she is carrying a goose and he gets run over occationally ...



Sally carry's birds we had kocked down earlier down the fenceline ....




That was the only flight we had this a.m. ,,,, some pigeons kept us entertained though and were a little lighter for Sally to retrieve ....

Randy drops a 40 yard pigeon that was travelling Mach 1 ! ...



Sally on the pigeons with Spike not far behind ...




Sun is up full .... no birds flying now , so we start to pack up ... cool to see all the Menonite farmers heading out to work in the background ...



Spike is getting tried anyhow ...



I head back to the truck and get a couple of pictures of the kids at the farm that had gathered to watch us this a.m. .... they even tried viewing from a few different vantage points .... not sure if the boys told the sister she couldn't come up ? ..... she had something in mind for them and teased them by pulling the ladder away ...




Back at the truck ...



Of course it just wouldn't be the same if the new farms resident dog hadn't marked my tires ! .... Some things never change , no matter what farm you hunt on ! ....



Headed home to clean birds and download pictures .... Will be hooking up with 2 other friends to try another field tonight ...

[Big John]

Excellent pic's again RJ!
Those Geese are quickly becoming one of my favorite Game targets.
Glad you had a fun opener. Keep up the good work.

[ecoaster]

Nice pics R.J. Love the "in flight" shots of Spike . You've got my trigger finger itching. I have another week or so here before I come back south. I should be able to make the duck opener with any luck. Time to get out of here. IT SNOWED TODAY!!!

[DropTine]

Nice pics! We were thinking of going out but when we seen the tempreture, we said screw it and we set a date for next saturday.

[BUCKSHOT]

Excellent Pic's R.J.
Looks like you had a fine morning. Do you eat Pigeon?

[bbbwb]

RJ

Excellent hunt by the looks of the pictures which are excellent as usual.
Aside from the success, how are the pin feathers on the birds? Have they fully feathered out and thus easy to pick clean?
I haven't gone bird hunting early in the season for a few years for this reason. Many hunters skin the birds to avoid the difficulty in picking early in season.
Hope your successful hunts continue this season.

bbbwb

[chris4570]

Looks like you had a very entertaining morning. Great shots, and great shooting. Just the first of many field reports from you this fall, I hope.

[leonk]

Excellent photos, RJ. Nice truck (before it was pissed on )

[R.J.]

Thanks all ... Yep it was a beauty opening day ...

Some young and some old birds ... we skinned all so no problems with the feathers ... I took some beauty cleaned breast filets back to the Menonite farmer .. he was thrilled ... and from the conversation I had with him , well lets just say = looks like we secured another property !

And yep I ate some pigeom meat yesterday ... it was great !

As for the field reports ... yep , will keep them coming as the season progresses ... I was out again this morning with Sally ... we got our limit of geese buy 8:00 am ... took some pictures with my small pocket Olympus so not the greatest quality ... also took a short video ( 1st time I tried it ) with the same camera = ( some crows that were squaking at me over the decoys as the sun came up ... )

Pic's are downloading now ... will post soon ..

[TPM]

Keep the dog pics coming! Got a chuckle of the pee on the tire shot. I ran beagles for a deer camp up north for a number of years and the dogs were always "Armour-alling" the tires of guys vehicles. It was a pretty "hoytee-toytee" camp, lots of money and some high-end cars that guys were pretty anal about. Those were the cars the dogs seemed to always nail first.