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GOOSE HUNTING &
GOOD CONVERSATION
By: Ron Wilson
November 20, 2002.... The local ducks
have been pretty well harvested and those that have survived have gotten
smart in a hurry! With this in mind my hunting friends decided to treat
me to a little goose hunting Saturday of last week. We now have a large
population of home grown Canadian Geese that were born and raised right
in the central valley.
I find that one of the best parts of
hunting is the camaraderie that goes along with it. It was still dark as
we put on our camouflage outerwear. As we were doing this, one of the
guys complained loudly about the so and so that tied his camouflaged
coverall legs in a knot. We got tight lipped as he untied them just to
get his feet through the leg holes! We
tried to convince him that it must of been his wife who had tied them,
as we didn't have time to do the dirty deed. We told him his wife was
probably at home just waiting to see if the coveralls had been untied
when he got home from hunting that evening. This way she would know he
was really out hunting and not out fooling around somewhere! I don't
think he bought the story but it seemed a logical explanation to us!
After a good laugh we went to set out the
spread of goose decoys and wait for the action to start. It wasn't long
after shoot time arrived that we realized we made our first mistake. A
pair of mallards came by and lit just outside the goose decoys, but too
far for us to shoot at on the pond.
A little later I bagged a 14 pound
Honker. Things then got slow, so we talked about days of old as we got
to know one another better. We found we had a mutual friend named
Mike Stevenson, a very good friend of mine that now lives in Lakeport.
The stories of days gone by and how hunting used to be got better and
better! Damn these guys were almost as ancient as me! I thought about
all the information they were talking about, heck, they definitely have
been around the pond a time or two!
We stood up to get out of the blind and 3
mallards were on the pond, just out of gun range. Oh well just another
mistake, those suckers never made a sound when they came in, or we were
just to busy to notice!
We decided to have some lunch and do a
little more talking. When we got finished and looked around, there was a
honker in the decoy spread. As a guest I was given first crack at
him, the guys wanted to make sure I got my limit of birds and this was
an easy one. Then again maybe they were waiting for me to put some shot
in a decoy so they could give me hell! Anyway the goose weighed about 8
pounds and no decoys sunk! With the hunting being slow and me having my
limit, the guys decided that there was football to watch and they wanted
to be home in time to watch a couple of their favorite teams.
Sunday we tried it again, but it was
miserable hunting, no wind, no nothing, it just wasn't hunting weather.
We watched some fly by's and called it an early day to be sure and be
home in time to watch the Raiders and the 49ers. I am sure glad that
next weekend will be the last weekend of duck hunting until after
Thanksgiving. It will give me time to chase some wild pheasants next
Saturday and then maybe go wet a line.
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