Gary Greene’s Memories from an Old Hunter.…#46
This summer, I had a few sparing thoughts of the upcoming hunting season as my son Nate and I worked on a new blind concept in my garage and I bought a couple of 360 degree turning, comfort chairs for the skiff, but it wasn’t until the farmer across the street cut and baled his wheat field that my thoughts of flying birds magnified.
Sandhill Cranes and straw round bales in recently cut wheat field. (July, 2017)
On my ATV, I drove my wife Chris through that 200+ acre field loaded with hundreds of large straw round bales and she took numerous pictures. There’s just something special when the farmers start bringing in their crops and no matter how hot it was that day, hunting season was in the air and my life seemed to take a big step forward to the season openers.
Even though my health has been failing and it was 90 degrees in the sun, I had the urge to stack the firewood that I cut last summer. That split firewood in my gloved hands renewed memories of hunting seasons past. I dream of coming home with a frost bitten face after a morning hunt and starting a fire in our fireplace insert. Having that glowing warmth over take me and our home, it doesn’t get much better than that as my eyes close and I fade into slumber.
Until 2013, we have never really had much success with the early goose season when Nate became friends with Brian from Jefferson. Brian’s father-in-law owns quite a bit of farmland and Brian was scouting the last week of August searching for flocks of feeding geese.
Unusual for us, Brian found that the last two nights before opening day, healthy flocks of Canadas were feeding in a recently cut wheat field. There was a catch however as Brian’s father-in-law had given permission to several groups of hunters to hunt his property.
Large straw round bales and my neighbor's barn. (July, 2017)
Nate is a diehard waterfowl hunter and will go that extra mile or ten to find ducks and geese. So that morning of September 1st, Nate and I were carrying our decoy bags into the field at 2:30am, about four hours prior to shooting hours and early enough that we should beat anyone into that field. Brian first joined us at shooting time. During those mosquito biting hours that we waited in the field, a thick fog rolled in and stayed thru the early morning.
We had our two layout blinds covered properly with matching cover from the picked field and our two dozen full body geese decoys were set up in a U, C or J position or whatever Nate decided would work best that morning.
I was the only hunter that wore a mosquito netting hunting hat and was very pleased that I did as even 100%deet bug repellent was not doing a perfect job.
Nate and Gary Greene with Nyjer and the results of a rare, successful early season goose hunt. (2013)
A few minutes after legal shooting time, we could hear a small flock coming from the south and it appeared as if they were coming right at us. Because of the dense fog, we could hear them approaching closer but we could not see anything that resembled geese. The honking got louder and louder and we could tell the flock was flying low. Nate told us that he was going to call the shot, so he had us wait for him to make the call. The next thing we knew, about twenty feet above our heads, the geese flew past us before we could even shoot. Nate responded with: “We probably just blew our only chance of the day.” As he felt badly he missed the call.
About an hour later the fog started to lift nicely and the geese started flying with regularity. We had a couple of small flocks of threes and fours and a few solos come into our dekes. We ended up shooting eight Canadas with my two year old, black lab Nyjer retrieving seven of those birds as we lost a runner in the adjacent thick tree line. Brian made a real nice shot on a goose that flared and he dropped it over the standing corn. Brian grew up in Iowa and was a pheasant hunter, but I believe that was his first goose harvest. Nate and I both made the shots we should have made, which doesn’t always occur.
It turned out to be the best early season goose hunt of our lives, as most days the geese decide to change opening day feeding patterns. That makes the good days that much more memorable. We have been back to the farm on several occasions and Brian has pre-scouted for us, but we have had no success and have not fired a shot. Maybe the geese will be there this September and Nate and I will be setting up at 2:30am to beat any other would be hunters into the fields.