H20fwler
5 year old buck +
Saturday was our opener, normally we set up on the lake but the oldest son couldn't make it due to a wedding in Pittsburg and a guy I work with wanted help discouraging geese from using his pond.
So this friend from work has this big pond about an hour north of me, all summer he is talking about how he and his wife don't like the goose crap around it. The pond is fifteen acres with a little island in it, ten houses along one side and his big new house on the other...he had said he had around ten geese there. None of that sounded that exciting houses/only ten birds/hour from home.....a couple weeks ago he says there are twenty five geese on his pond now. It starts sounding a little better, last week he says there are forty geese...now I am getting very interested so ask about the neighbors he says he will talk to them even though he owns all the ground around the pond and it is easily over a hundred yards from their houses. I mention to my youngest son that I may have an afternoon shoot for us first day.
Last Wednesday at work my buddy comes up to me says there is a hundred geese there now! I go on high interest and start asking him all kinds of questions, what time of day/do they roost there/when do they fly out/ where are they landing/ can I bring a couple guests...he answers they come and go all day neighbors are all about getting them spooked off pond heck yes bring more shooters.. IT ALL SOUNDS GREAT!
So I get my duck hunting buddy involved now, we have been hunting together since we were kids but always do our own thing for the opener if he can pry himself out of the combine this time of year, his son is also same age as my youngest and they have been friends all their lives.
I text my youngest I am changing up plans...we will hit pond mid morning after birds fly out and I invited my good buddy and his son. So I text everyone that this is shaping up to maybe be a once or twice in a season epic stupid shoot...they start to get frothed up too..by Friday night everyone is a go. My buddy asks if Jordan and I would like to go along early morning on his river property for a family woody shoot..in forty years I have never been given this honor so I politely decline...he insists so we are in!
At O-Dark thirty we meet up on his river bottom...there is my buddy and his son, Jordan and I and a good friend of his with his wife with their two small boys. Along the river there it is mostly pass shooting at wood duck rockets in bad early morning light with a dark back drop. It was a hoot and all over after about forty five minutes.
We packed up and headed north to the pond..we had a canoe a couple dogs ten goose floaters a dozen mallard decoys and some bigfoot field decoys. My buddy called me before we got there saying that around forty geese were already back at the pond...when we got there the pond was way bigger than I expected. We load up the canoe and start shuttling gear and guys/dogs to the little island that is really the only safe spot to hunt and shoot from...geese start flushing off and leaving which is fine by me, also about twenty mallards flush from the little island.
We get set up and within ten minutes a flock of eight geese come in perfect, we get them all. Then the mallards start wanting back..lots of them. A huge flock of maybe a hundred geese comes our way...someone says "hey look one snow goose is in the flock" we all immediately agree snow goose is target #1 we don't get many chances at them in Ohio they are a trophy bird here. The flock works great but is swinging outside of our little spread..we open up on the snow it flips and we are done just like that.
We ended up seeing well over 150 geese and forty or fifty mallards over the decoys...it really did all work out to be one of those special crazy hunts.
And my co-worker thanked us for shooting geese off his pond!!!!
So this friend from work has this big pond about an hour north of me, all summer he is talking about how he and his wife don't like the goose crap around it. The pond is fifteen acres with a little island in it, ten houses along one side and his big new house on the other...he had said he had around ten geese there. None of that sounded that exciting houses/only ten birds/hour from home.....a couple weeks ago he says there are twenty five geese on his pond now. It starts sounding a little better, last week he says there are forty geese...now I am getting very interested so ask about the neighbors he says he will talk to them even though he owns all the ground around the pond and it is easily over a hundred yards from their houses. I mention to my youngest son that I may have an afternoon shoot for us first day.
Last Wednesday at work my buddy comes up to me says there is a hundred geese there now! I go on high interest and start asking him all kinds of questions, what time of day/do they roost there/when do they fly out/ where are they landing/ can I bring a couple guests...he answers they come and go all day neighbors are all about getting them spooked off pond heck yes bring more shooters.. IT ALL SOUNDS GREAT!
So I get my duck hunting buddy involved now, we have been hunting together since we were kids but always do our own thing for the opener if he can pry himself out of the combine this time of year, his son is also same age as my youngest and they have been friends all their lives.
I text my youngest I am changing up plans...we will hit pond mid morning after birds fly out and I invited my good buddy and his son. So I text everyone that this is shaping up to maybe be a once or twice in a season epic stupid shoot...they start to get frothed up too..by Friday night everyone is a go. My buddy asks if Jordan and I would like to go along early morning on his river property for a family woody shoot..in forty years I have never been given this honor so I politely decline...he insists so we are in!
At O-Dark thirty we meet up on his river bottom...there is my buddy and his son, Jordan and I and a good friend of his with his wife with their two small boys. Along the river there it is mostly pass shooting at wood duck rockets in bad early morning light with a dark back drop. It was a hoot and all over after about forty five minutes.
We packed up and headed north to the pond..we had a canoe a couple dogs ten goose floaters a dozen mallard decoys and some bigfoot field decoys. My buddy called me before we got there saying that around forty geese were already back at the pond...when we got there the pond was way bigger than I expected. We load up the canoe and start shuttling gear and guys/dogs to the little island that is really the only safe spot to hunt and shoot from...geese start flushing off and leaving which is fine by me, also about twenty mallards flush from the little island.
We get set up and within ten minutes a flock of eight geese come in perfect, we get them all. Then the mallards start wanting back..lots of them. A huge flock of maybe a hundred geese comes our way...someone says "hey look one snow goose is in the flock" we all immediately agree snow goose is target #1 we don't get many chances at them in Ohio they are a trophy bird here. The flock works great but is swinging outside of our little spread..we open up on the snow it flips and we are done just like that.
We ended up seeing well over 150 geese and forty or fifty mallards over the decoys...it really did all work out to be one of those special crazy hunts.
And my co-worker thanked us for shooting geese off his pond!!!!
