What Would You Do?

[Mike Franzen]

Here's what we did. We circled back around and got behind the dam. We crawled silently up to the top and leveled our guns to spray hot lead ... No, just kidding lol.

It was Big E's call what to do. I was wondering how it was going to go. He decided first, we would wait and see if they flew out on their own. They didn't so we went ahead and set up near the water with the wind at our backs. His reasoning, like Destry and Ricks, was the birds would fly out and hopefully return at some point to the open water. It was really cool seeing all those geese take off in an orderly manner. So we got set up and first thing the wind changed directions. Then the pond skimmed over. The dekes froze in place. Three birds came in and we killed one but it landed on the ice in the "I'm Dead" position. Several more birds veered off after inspecting their downed comrade. Getting it meant hiking to the other side of the pond, wading in to break the heavier ice so Babe could get to the bird through the thinner ice. That's what we did. We hunted the next 4 hours and killed 4 more birds. The old Parker 10 gauge did it's job with the brass shell loads I had worked up. One of the best things we saw was a Drake Mallard plummet straight down, belly first, and break through the ice. Another thing was watching Babe retrieve and bring us the dead. She was like an ice breaking machine. So, all in all, it was a great last day spent with great friends.