Thsnksgiving Weekend....

[MarketHunter]

Had a good couple days down at home hunting with my old father and our friend Russell on his farm.

First morning I managed three wood ducks and a pair of mallards. Dad had a pair of wood ducks and a mallard.

I got extra lucky and picked up a banded bird. She apparently followed me down from Michigan, banded two months ago up around Algonac.

The second day the shooting on the ducks was a lot slower but we managed to get into the geese. Three of us ended up with our two geese each plus two wood ducks and a pair of bluebills.

The geese were interesting to say the least, something I'd never seen happen before for sure. Russell had said there were five geese coming into the pond either in the morning or evening but never both, so we had a 50/50 chance.

They came in the morning, very low, never making a sound. We got lucky and spotted them pretty far out so had a chance to get low and be ready. They circled the pond very wary, two or three times, then finally made a swing for the decoys. Just at the last second I heard a couple grunt and they all tipped up a wing to flare. Russell saw it too and called the shot, three fell as they scrambled away.

Much to our surprise the remaining three birds (the original five had brought a friend), turned to get right with the wind at the end of the pond and were going to come right back over us. I'd managed to get one shell in my gun after emptying out on the first volley.

They cut straight over and we gave them another round, killing two dead and the last taking a hard hit. I'd broken my gun right away and stuck in two fresh shells but never stopped watching the goose thinking it might fall. Well it's a good thing I kept looking, because it turned at the opposite end of the pond and swung past, giving me a long shot which I managed to make killing it at about 60 yards.