Opening Day of Dove Season and I......

....went Goose hunting!  Georgia has an early season for Canadian geese.  The Department of Wildlife shipped some of the geese into the state many years ago and they have thrived here in the South Georgia heat.  They have even become a nuisance to golf courses and athletic fields across the state because they like to feed in the nice plush grass.  To control numbers, they turned hunters loose on these birds from the north.  Given the fact that we have been sitting around all summer without shooting anything, you find some pretty itchy trigger fingers waiting on this day to arrive.

My cousins invited me to come along on this trip.  They sorted needed me to go because I knew the land owner and was able to obtain permission to hunt.  We got there well before daylight and started laying out our blinds and setting up decoys.  Some of the crew had gone ahead the day before and dug us some pits to place our layout blinds in.  I found out fairly quickly that this goose hunting takes a lot of work and a lot of equipment.  We were set up in the middle of a pasture on a hill that the geese had been spotted in the past two days.  The birds were roosting in a pond about 1/2 mile away.  As daylight broke we could hear the geese on the water starting their morning chatter.  Excitement was building among the group as we were waiting on the 200 or more birds to leave the lake and head for our spot as they had done the day before.  Even my cousin's award winning Lab was waiting with anticipation.

The birds got a little louder and we could tell that they were in the air.  The boys did some soft calling and a group of six made their way towards our set up.  We had placed the decoys in an arc to try and draw the birds to the middle of our set up, but this first group was lighting on the far right end.  My cousin Zack was the only one able to shoot and he brought down two geese before the others could get away.  We quickly gathered up dead birds and got back in our blinds.  We heard the rest of the birds leaving the water and started calling again.  Nothing was coming.  They headed in the other direction.

The group was a little dejected as all of the proper scouting had been done and all the preparations had been made, but they do call this hunting, not killing.  We sat there for a little while until Zack offered to go get the truck and see if he could find where the birds had gone.  He was gone for about 15 minutes before he called and said "Get ready".  He found them in a corn field about a mile away and got permission to walk through the field to try and ambush them.  We could hear the geese as they took flight and then we saw them on the horizon.  We started calling and a small group turned our way.  Before you knew it, there were 7 more geese on the dirt and our hunt was over.  It was a really good time and something that I can see myself doing again!  I had a ball!!

The Luckie cousins with the day's bounty!!

Now before all of you think that I have gone crazy and traded in goose hunting for dove hunting, think again.  Reid and I managed just fine that afternoon!

We didn't go to the field until late in the afternoon because of the heat, but the little Browning Gold did not disappoint as the limit was obtained in quick fashion!

The day came to a close with Georgia Southern pulling out an awesome win!  It was a great opening day!!  Hope yours was too!