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I went out for opening day of the waterfowl season this year. I didn’t go in the
morning, but rather my nephew and I chose to go to a cornfield in Kane County in
the afternoon. This was the only cut cornfield in that area right now, which
really helped.
My nephew had talked to the farmer the day before and he told my nephew there
were about 250 geese in his field that evening. He also told us to stay and hunt
till sunset as the geese came in very late.
I know waterfowl hunters love to be on the water, including myself, because
there is something so peaceful about watching water even when there are no birds
around. But every so often we head to the fields, which when the geese are
feeding in the area can be very exciting too.
We had about 5 rows of standing sorghum in the middle of the field, which
provided a great hiding place for us to put our chairs in, sit back and relax
and enjoy the fresh air. It was a bluebird day and not much was flying at all.
Still the feeling of being out there in the field beat sitting on my deck at
home.
Shooting time ended at 6:11 that day. At about 5:30 we had two flocks of geese
head our way. One flock was to our North and another to our South. They cupped
their wings and all but were just too high to drop in and didn’t bother to
circle and continued on. We thought for sure those were our slice of pie for the
day, but we got a doughnut hole instead.
At 6:00 we were thinking maybe it wasn’t our day. Five minutes later here comes
a flock of about 100 birds honking like crazy. We started to call a little to
attract them. Then as they got closer we were blowing our brains out to make it
sound like the 35 decoys in our spread were all begging them to come on down.
All of a sudden they were circling over us like crazy. The honking was unreal
and I had goose bumps all over me just listening to these magnificent birds
telling us ,“This is it, you better get ready” I told my nephew we had two
minutes left. Just then three of the birds cupped and started dropping like
B-52’s. I said let’s go for these before we run out of time. They were off to
our right a ways but reachable. I stood up and let two rounds go. My nephew got
one round off. Sure enough one of the birds came down. I believe if we had more
shooting time and we let them, all 100 birds would have been in our lap.
I’ll just say this. If you want to get a youngster involved in bird hunting,
take him for a goose hunt in the cornfield. You won’t have to worry about him
falling out of the boat and the honking from these birds will get his adrenaline
flowing so much it will take him a half-hour to calm down. Even if he doesn’t
get one, I guarantee he will want to come back. I still thrill to the sound of
the great Canadian Honker and don’t think I’ll ever get over it.
God created a beautiful majestic bird and maybe told it, “You will thrill the
heart of man with your speaking and gracefulness!” If He didn’t say that I
believe He should have.
Have a great waterfowl season and hope you enjoyed the small talk.
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