My son has been on me all season to take him goose hunting, but because he’s only six and it’s been so cold he’s had to stay home. I don’t want him freezing out and loosing interest. But with the weather be as warm as it was on Saturday I figured this was my chance. I was only able to hunt the afternoon, but I had a good field scouted. So we set out about 1:30. We put him on stubling detail and he was on a mission gathering arm fulls of corn stubble. We had a power hunter we put him in and it flat disappeared. I explained to him that he had to keep the hood down till I said take ‘em, and then he insisted we practiced a few times. He was cracking us up! The wind was blowing pretty good and while we waited on the birds he was running around the spread perfecting is flagging skills. About the time he was running out of patience the birds started moving and man was he stoked. The first flock short landed us so I quit calling and the next pair sailed right in. We hurried up and dropped them and let them lay because a bigger flock was on its way. When Brayden seen the other birds he said, “holy man if all of them come over here this will be a good hunt dad.” I couldn’t help but laugh. We hurried up and tucked back in, and he got one heck of a show. We landed around a 200 bird flock right in front of us. We dropped two more, but one sailed. My son and I grabbed the 3 close ones and my buddy took after the far one. The birds didn’t come out all at once, but more of a constant stream and with my buddy out there laying down they wouldn’t commit. By the time he got back to the blinds the birds had quit flying. So he helped pick up all the dekes, and he insisted on carrying all the bird back to the truck. Although he was down to one when we got there. It was a short hunt but probably my favorite. He definitely has a new love and he can’t wait for the next time the old man takes him out.

So this year has been hit and misses with the waterfowl hunting for Team SnK. Team members have spent lots of time scouting and finding where the birds are and what they are doing, when they leave the roost, where they are feeding, what they are feeding on etc. So having taken some time off do to the freeze up and birds holding in areas we don’t have permission to hunt, I decided that it was time to check out a reliable field that we hunt each year but only when the birds start using the area really good. So myself and my son headed out Saturday morning after his basketball game to see what was happening in that area. We arrived in our spot well after the first flights should have flown, but to our dismay there were no birds in the area feeding anywhere that we could find. So we headed a little North of our field to a spot the birds love to roost, and it’s a good thing we did because there on the body of water that is completely frozen, (except for the hole the birds have kept open), was covered up in birds. I am no expert on estimating the number of birds in a given group, but there had to be at least 4000 geese on the spot.

Ok so we found the birds, now what?? How long are they going to sit there?? Did they already go out and feed and return?? Not having permission to hunt the roost, (nor would we hunt the roost), and not wanting to just sit on the side of the road and wait. We decided to go check on another roost area a little farther away to our South. Once we arrived in that area we had seen a few birds in the air, ok so the birds have decided to finally fly out to feed. Over the next 3 hours of driving around and checking field after field and following birds from both roost areas, I had figured out where the birds were going and it just so happened they were going to my field that I have permission on. Usually once a year or maybe twice the birds love to hit my field and if I put in the time it pays off with a great hunt. So not wanting to spook the birds out of my field we sat up on a road a ½ mile away and watched with the binoculars. I had to only watch for ½ hour to know that the birds would be in the field the rest of the evening and would surely return the next day.

So I get on the phone and text and call the team members who I knew might be able to go. The hunt is set for the next day, the problem is what time do we go?? Having not made it down to the area until mid-morning scouting, did we miss the birds take off early or are they holding tight till mid-morning before they go out to feed?? After talking with several team members we decide why freeze our butts off early morning, let’s get there about an hour before I saw the birds flying.

Done deal!! Everyone that’s going meet at my house at 10 AM the next day, the plan was to meet up load up two trucks with all the stuff so we didn’t have to try and pull the trailer. See we can drive into this field, but with the snow that was on the ground we figured that we might have trouble with the trailer and get two trucks in and out would be easier. We meet up and load everything up and head out, we arrive a little early and pull into the field. As we are driving out I notice that there seems to be some tracks in the snow in the field, we park and get out to check an see if they are goose tracks. As we are walking into the edge of the field we hear some geese, just to our South is a pair of geese locked up and coming right to us. They finally see us and fly off, we look at the tracks and they are goose tracks. But as we drive on out into the field we see that the geese have been all over the field, I mean there are tracks everywhere. So did I just not see the tracks yesterday and a ton of birds came in after we left, or have the birds been using the field for several days now?? Doesn’t really matter, I know where the birds where yesterday and that’s where we are setting up for our hunt today.

Four team members begin placing the spread of almost 100 birds in the field; all while I keep thinking about the tracks in the snow and how many birds had to have been in the field. So I start second guessing myself, should we be in a different spot?? Did all the birds come in here yesterday, or have they been coming in here for a few days?? Should we be on the edge, or in the middle?? After half the spread had been somewhat placed we decided to stay where we were and see what happened. We finished setting up in about an hour and twenty minutes, and the birds should be coming in any minute. Everyone is loaded and ready to go, now the birds just need to arrive and that should be anytime now, right??

Not so, just as with almost every waterfowl hunt, something never works out like you want it to. And those of you that have hunted waterfowl long enough know exactly what I’m talking about. So instead of the birds flying close to the same time they did the day before, the team stands around in the field for the next 3-4 hours waiting and waiting and waiting. Finally as we are talking one of us see’s some birds off in the distance, I grab our flag (which we placed on a 12 foot pole, to get it up in the air higher) and begin to flag, while the rest of the team starts in on the calls. The birds turn and are headed our way, everyone gets down and covers up, guns ready, still calling and the birds are closing in. At about 70 yards and just seconds before I call the shot the birds flare and take off, what the %*#%??? Did you guys move?? Were you covered up?? What happened, are the decoys ok?? We check the decoys everything looks ok,” hey here comes another group, get down” someone yells. I flag they call and here the birds come, these are locked up and floating in just like they are suppose to. “Get them” bang, bang, bang, shots ring out and out of the 10 or so birds that came in all but one fly’s away!!! One bird, that’s it, ok someone needs to work on their shooting, ok everyone needs to work on their shooting. But hey we have one bird down and the birds are up and moving finally.

Then someone remembers, did we turn the camera on?? Nope, turn it on when the next group comes in, and we do. The next group and big group heads our way, coming right in just right, then at 100 yards they turn to the South a bit and land 20 yards outside our decoys and 50 yards from our closest guy. “Let stay, leave them,” I say as we have another group coming in right in front of us. When that group is in range, “get them,” bang, bang, bang, shots ring out again, birds fly away, and we have?? You got it, one bird again!!! Come on, “are you guys shooting blanks”?? Two birds in ten minutes, ok here comes another group, get ready, “they are coming”. Two singles swing in but fly off out of range, but right behind them is a group of 20 plus coming in. Everyone focuses in on the 20 birds; “take ‘em,” as we sit up to shoot 2 of us see a bird that had landed only twenty feet from us, just standing there. Bang, bang, bang, shots rang out again as someone hit the lead bird in the group, a second bird falls to the left, and the brave one that was twenty feet in front of us, well he didn’t get away as he tried to fly off someone connected with him.

Three birds down, now that’s a little better, oh yeah I forgot to mention there was only four of us hunting this day, as 2 others backed out at the last minute with other plans. Ok so we have 5 birds and 4 guys, and all this has happened in about 45 minutes and there is now only about an hour left of shooting time. The next 30 minutes we see several groups, but none that want to come into our field, finally we have a group coming and they appear as if they are coming right in but change their mind half way to us and go off in another direction. What would be the final group of the night heads are way and come all the way in but land to our left in the decoys, waiting for a split second to see if any other birds were coming ( none were) I sit up and as I do the birds take off, bang, one shot one bird down. Not a bad day for the team of 4 that got together, six birds and some good times in the field again for Team SnK.
Stay safe and enjoy your time in the field next you go out.

Chuck Team SnK

The birds had finally moved into my late season fields which meant one thing. HONKERS!!! I scouted 2 days before the hunt and you could tell they were new, because the bounced field to field trying to decide what they wanted to do. There was only one of my fields that I seen birds in every time I was out, so I pulled the trigger on hunting that field.

I called everyone one and gave the the fore warning that we were going to be neck deep in birds or bust. They all decided that it would be worth the chance. We had to walk a little over a 1/4 mile into the field. 5 guys made 3 trips in and 3 trips out. We sat out 10 dozen dekes to help entice the birds beings we were gonna be running traffic.

Despite the cold and cloud cover the geese started moving fairly early, and the troubles began. They would circle the spread long enough to pick us out and slide us. We decided to make some quick adjustments. We went from a blob to a U shaped spread and the shooting started.

We were a little off our game in the shooting department, but we were dropping geese. The last flock was by far the best. We had about 8 come in and work us. For what ever reason 2 of them broke ahead of the rest and locked up. We were going to let them land and try to suck the rest in. The pair decided they didn’t like something so they started to boogie out. So we took the pair and dropped them both only to find out they were both neck/leg banded!! We were stoked to say the least.

The sun came out and the rest of the birds that came out picked us out and slid us, but it didn’t matter at this point. We had shot 9 birds and had our trophies of the hunt. We picked up with smiles on our faces. This will definitely be a hunt we talk about for years. Especially considering Wayne and I were the only ones out there that had shot bands before.

J.W., Team SnK

I went out to scout one of my goose fields and was amazed at the amount of ducks feeding there. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but I was very pleased none the less. I watched them for quite a while and figured out what part of the field they were using and where they were coming from. If you have never field hunted ducks they act a lot different than geese. They fly around the field as much as the feed. It is amazing the get any eating done at all. Another thing is that the hunting always seems better in the evening.
I rounded up my duck dekes and made sure the mojo was charged. I called my hunting party up and they were more than happy to bang some late season mallards. I had to repack my blind bag. I really didn’t want to shoot ducks with 3 ½” BBB, but if a goose did happen to come along I want to be able to drop him. So I loaded up with 3 ½” #2’s.
We all met up around 1:00 and headed to the field. Much to my dismay there were birds in the field when we got there. We hurried up and grabbed 2 dozen duck full bodies and 2 dozen goose full bodies. Six of us scrambled to get set up. As soon as we set up the birds quit. The excited in me panicked while deep down I knew they’d be back.
Twenty minutes later here they came. They were a little skittish, but with some coaxing they sank in. It seemed like flock after flock floated around us. It was guaranteed that when we took a shot we spooked a flock a hundred yards out.
At the end of the hunt we ended up with 15 birds. Although we only got about half our limit it was still a blast. Sometimes it’s hard to pick one bird when 50 to 100 are right in your face. This has to be my favorite way to hunt ducks. I’ll definitely be looking to do it again.

J.W. Strobel

What a way to start out a week! The whole team got together for what we would consider a “day to remember.”

It all started when JW and Wayne drove in to town late on a Sunday night only to see half the team standing there as a welcoming committee! The next day was the main focus on all of our minds! After getting everyone settled down and to bed, not one of us slept that night! All we could think about was: what type of spread do we want to put out, are the birds still in the area (knowing they were due to scouting for a week straight), and are we going to be successful. With all of these things in mind, led to excitement and lack of sleep!

4:30am came FAST! Everyone was up and getting dressed, drinking coffee and eating a little to get the morning started. We all piled into the trucks pulling 2 enclosed trailers full of decoys! Off we went down the road. Chuck and JW discussed what they wanted to do with the decoys once we all got there.

Arriving at the field, 2 members began setting blinds and brushing them in, 10 to be exact. 9 for the firing line and 1 behind for the camera man. The rest of the team unloaded decoys and set them in the field. Light was starting to show in the cool morning sky so we needed to hurry it up a bit so we kicked it into full gear. Once we finished setting decoys and blinds, we stood around discussing and pointing where birds normally fly from and what direction the roosting spots were.

Just shortly after 8am, we saw our first group of geese get up off the water and begin flying, so we all piled into our blinds and got the camera rolling. After having a few groups fly over and would not commit but gave us a look, we decided that the spread was a little wrong. Quickly we all ran around adjusting decoys and slipped back into the blinds. The next group came in and they must have liked what they saw cause they flew around us and then “locked up” and dropped right in. In the mean time, the camera is rolling and watching the birds float right in, then all the sudden when the birds were about 10ft off the ground and 10ft in front of the blinds, JW yells “TAKE ‘EM” barrels rang and birds dropped like rain!!! Wow, that was sweet, but something was still a little wrong with the spread. So once again a few members jumped out and moved stuff around again. The next group flew by and locked right up. “Here they come” someone yelled out. Once again, barrels popped out of the blinds and geese dropped! This was crazy!! Everyone who shot a bird went out and gathered them and quickly piled back in. Its now about 9:30am and birds are EVERYWHERE. After flagging and calling a bit, finally we get the attention of another group and here they came. These shotguns were ‘hot’. More geese fell and we were now celebrating!!

Well the morning slowed down and it reached into the dead time where birds quit flying. So it was time for lunch. After eating lunch, we counted our birds and we had 8 birds down. So we decided to think about what was going to happen here in a few hours as far as when the birds were going to fly and when. Well about 3:05pm birds started lifting and flying again. We all piled back in and began calling and flagging. The first group came right in without hesitation and locked up and dropped in. Shots fired and birds dropped! Quickly everyone scrambled gathering birds cause the others were still calling and flagging cause another group was headed to us. All nestled down, the next group once again dropped right in. More shots fired and more geese fell!! Someone yelled “whats our bird count at now?” “16″ someone yelled back. Well here comes a pair of geese right over the telephone wires and dropped in without much calling. 3 shots, 2 birds down! 18 geese down! We just doubled what we did that morning in about 15 minutes. “Get down” someone yells….”DUCKS” We had a group of about 10 ducks fly in and one finally peeled off and locked up and Wayne pops out of his blind and blasts this Drake Mallard!

OK so now we are 18 geese and 1 duck down and we have 20 minutes of shooting light/hours left. Birds were still flying but not anywhere close by so we decide to call it a day!! 9 man team, 9 birds away from a 9 man limit, that’s a really good day!!!

Curt, Team SnK

The season has been fantastic this year! Scouting and hunting hard all year so far, who would have guessed that the last weekend of rifle season would have been the day! It all started Saturday morning when Shaun and I showed up to our spot in quest of harvesting a deer! In the past several weeks/weekends we have watched deer after deer after deer walk the property so we have a great idea where this critters hang out! Well the wind was blowing in one direction then supposed to quickly change about an hour after sun up so we decided to use our ground blind to help keep the wind off of us plus keep scent control to a minimum.

So we get going down to the timber but about 50 head of cattle decided they wanted to follow us down….ARE YOU SERIOUS…..this wont be good cause they will be in the way if a deer did decide to show up. Long story short, the cows eventually lost interest in us and walked off after about 30 min. Well Shaun and I were sitting there and its about 7:15 am and I see movement on the neighbors line. It was a few small bucks and 2 doe. Shaun got the camera ready because they were headed to us and going to jump the fence for me to take a shot. Shaun noticed movement to the right of where the deer were and there stood more deer, about 15 deer hopped the fence and jogged onto the property giving me NO shot. We hung out the rest of the morning and didn’t see anything so we decided to call it a morning and go grab lunch.

Returning from lunch, snow flakes began falling then the wind picked up and the temperature dropped quickly. Well when the snow moves in and temps drop quickly, in the evening, we hunt feed fields. So our land owner was so kind to build us a hay bale blind right there over looking a clover field. Wind was CRAZY and the snow was BLOWING but they always say the hunter who sticks it out through the ruff times of weather, it tends to pay off! Shaun and I were not seeing anything and we were running out of shooting hours and light so we decided to call it a day when I had this urge to look to the left and there came a Doe jogging the fence line. I told Shaun “DEER” so I grabbed my rifle and popped up and rested on the hay bale and the doe stopped and looked to the clover field and that’s when I let the shot ring out! SMACK, she ran a quick circle and dropped!!! Finally!!!!! A long but awesome day of deer hunting! Deer management is one of our big things out there. There are way too many doe out there so its definitely a good thing to take her. Walking up to her, I though wow, shes a pretty big girl, huge head. Loaded her up and weighed her, she hit the scale at about 180 lbs.! Great meat for the freezer and the bucks we chased all bow season will live for another year until we get after them next year!

Curt, Team SnK

Well my daughter has been asking to go out again and do the duck hunting thing. It had been a few weeks since we went the first time. I decided to take her back to the pond where we had a little luck on the first go around.

We made it out to the place early. I wanted to get there before daylight and get some dekes out so the birds would come right in. Well it would have worked great, but when we got out to the pond. We snuck up the damn to make sure there weren’t any birds on the water. I didn’t want to scare them off if they were. To my surprise I heard a honk. We peaked up and saw around 50 geese bedded on the water. So now it was a waiting game. We waited till legal shooting hours. And then proceeded to make noise to make the birds jump and boy did they ever. I shot twice and downed three birds. The first shot took two out and the second shot knocked the third one down. I was pumped. Got a limit of geese and wasn’t even there for them.

So we grabbed our stuff and took it over to where we were gonna sit up and I noticed only two birds in the water. The third bird that fell was barely flying but he got outta there. Before I could even get my waders on, 4 ducks flew in and left. Then once I had my waders on the two teal came in and landed. This is all before I even had decoys in the water. I made some more noise and they jumped. I shot once and downed both of them. So in a matter of about 5 minutes I had 5 birds down. And one got away. Not bad.

After gathering all the birds and bringing them back to our blind. I threw out a dozen dekes and sat and waited. We were there another hour and things slowed way down cause the wind was so strong. We were foolin around walking stretching our legs. I kind like to keep things active if my daughter goes so she doesn’t get bored. It’s the little things in life. When I noticed about 12 what I thought appeared to be pintails flying in. I took one shot as they flew past and smashed one of them. It was a pretty far shot but I thought what do I have to loose.

When it almost hit my decoys. I also noticed it was black and white and not brown like I originally thought it was. I knew it was a diver but couldn’t tell what type of bird it was. I had to wait what seemed like forever to find out too. It had to float clear across the pond because the way the wind was pushing it. So when I finally got to it I could see it was a golden eye. I had never shot one of those before. Pretty neat looking bird.

We had some mallards come in last second and knocked two of them down.
We decided to leave one bird shy of a duck limit. Not a bad morning and what a day for my daughter to be in the field with me.

Shaun Team SnK

Well this year I made good again in the deer department. I was able to make harvest a good 8 point. He’s not as big as last year, but a good mature deer just the same.

The second night of season I was sitting in my tree stand the faces North on the East side of the property. It sets right on the river on a major river crossing and It’s the same stand I harvested my deer in last year. To the South of me faces an alfalfa bottom, and there was barely a breath of wind.

About 1hour to 45 minutes before dark I notice a little six point at the far end of the alfalfa. He kept looking behind him so I knew something else was down there. Then a little bigger buck came out, but the first one kept staring South. All of a sudden a hot doe came burning out of the river.

She ran to the South part of the bottom, back to the river and then half way back and squatted in the middle of the field. At this point I knew there had to be a good buck, and that’s when I saw him. I knew he was a shooter right away. To make it better he was headed to me. But the doe took him down on the river. They were still heading towards me I just couldn’t see them. So I waited and listened and waited and listened. Nothing. Shooting time is about over so I felt like I had to make a move.

I decided to crawl out of my stand and walk towards him and try to get a shot. As I was loading up the back pack I heard a deer spook. When I turned around they were right across the river from me! I sat back down and grabbed the 25-.06. They weren’t bolting I just changed their course and that troublesome doe was now leading them up a hill. I kept waiting for the big one to give me a shot, and finally right before he was to far up the hill he turned. And I missed, I think… He didn’t spook off like the other 3, but he really didn’t act hurt either. He topped the hill and turned broadside, but beings he was at the top of the hill I couldn’t shoot anymore.

I watch him till dark and decided I would go around to the other side of the river and look for blood. I was almost positive I missed, but I wanted to make sure. We looked for awhile and decided to come back the next day to see if we could find a blood trail. The next morning about 9:30 we headed out. We wanted to make sure the other deer were done moving before we started tromping around. After about 45 minutes and no blood I was certain it was a clean miss.

Dad thought we should check the next drawl over to see if by some strange chance he bedded down there. I didn’t want to push the deer anymore, and against my protest we headed over there. We were standing on the hill glassing all the plum thickets, trees, and low spot when he came trotting out of the creek bottom. At about 60 yards he gave me a clean shot and I dropped him. I couldn’t believe it.

J.W. Team SnK

I was invited to hunt a guys lease just South of a major reservoir. I would be in in the birds flyway and we would be hunting out of pit blinds. I naturally jumped on the opportunity.

We were able to drive right up to the pond, and to a guy that normally has to huff it this was heaven. We set up about 2 doz goose dekes and about that many ducks. Set up and crawling into the blind about 20 min after we started setting up. We all got situated and started preparing for the birds.

The ducks started bombing the decoys, but with the overcast sky we could identify the ducks. By the time it was light enough the geese were moving and the guy that had the lease wanted to shoot geese. So we only shot 4 ducks. The geese didn’t really want to play the game. They had their mind set on where they wanted to be. It was a tough hunt and we were only able to bring down 6 lessors, but the convenience of this hunt made it top notch.

J.W. Strobel

Three of us went out Saturday morning to hunt a field some geese had been hitting. We were all pumped it supposed to be foggy and with the cold front the day before and that night there was promise of new birds. We showed up to the field that morning only to find six guy setting up in the field. We talked to them and found out that they too had permission, but were more than willing to let us join them.

They had 11 dozen full bodied and with our we set up a total of 22 dozen decoys! We put the decoys out in the green wheat and the blinds in the stubble. Shortly after shooting time we started to hear birds. We cut loose on the calls to guide them to us. The fog was so thick we couldn’t see them till the birds were almost in range. The first flock didn’t even make a swing. The just dumped in and we dropped six lesser.

As the fog lifted they got a little harder to work and at the end of the day we ended up with 42 birds. What a way to start the goose season. The dekes first trip out this year and we were just shy of a nine man limit of specks and canadas.

J.W.