Sometimes One Is Enough....
Couple old friends from my home town live across the river in Missouri these days. They'd called inviting me over for a goose hunt /old guides reunion. The weather wasn't great and it's all local geese but I was keen to go just to get a visit in with them. The Sullivan Brothers! Progeny of the great Charlie Sullivan, the finest mouth goose caller that Southern Illinois ever produced.
I drove over and met them before daylight. Brian has a little farm and we hunted a blind just 100 yards from his house. First small bunch that came along was pretty shy, but with some hard calling (the younger brother Matt was even mouth calling!) we managed to pull a single out. Not feet down but swinging by at a decent 40 yards. They hollered for me to shoot and I came up with the big factory Parker magnum 10 gauge. Two shots rang out and the goose kept flying, I hung my head in shame on that little performance I can tell you. Of course they started ribbing me unmercifully, but that's par for the course when you hunt with old guides like us. Was good to hear some old fashioned mouth calling I can tell you, been more than 20 years since I'd heard it done.
What made me so ill was that about 50 percent of these local birds are banded. And the one that decoyed was big as a damn swan, an old huge bird that I'm certain was carrying some jewelry. I managed to shake off the miss and get serious again thankfully.
Next bunch, and what turned out to be the last bunch, was a big group of 40 that was even more shy than the first. But we gave them our best stuff and pulled out a pair, same deal though, just swinging past at about 40 yards. I jerked the big gun to my shoulder and pulled a strong lead, dumping the bird with authority, it falling through a huge pecan tree at the edge of the field. Brian the older brother held down the other with a good shot from his automatic. We let them lay thinking more geese might come along, I was dying a thousand deaths wondering if mine had the magic ring on his leg.
We sat a long time watching bunches of high snow geese fly over and telling tales of days gone by. Finally I couldn't take it any longer and legged it over to the pecan. I let out a war whoop that could have been heard a mile when I flipped the bird over and saw the band. The crushing miss was forgotten as they congratulated me on the shot, made me feel a lot better I can tell you.
Finally it was clear that no more geese were coming so we packed it up. Another friend of theirs was along so he got a great shot of us all together. Gawd what a motley crew and looking old, hard to believe what seems like just yesterday was 25 and more years ago when we were all guiding.
What a morning! Treated them all to a big breakfast in town and then headed across the river into another tale that I've told on my first posting.......
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I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house once in a quarter--of an hour; paid money that I borrowed, three of four times; lived well and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass. Falstaff - Henry IV
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12-29-2014, 10:11 AM
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