Well Shato, I don't want your story time thread turn into actual events but since you mentined swans being mistakin I had to tell you about this....It is true because it happened to me.

Here in Virginia we have a draw on Swans only 600 permits a year are allowed My friends and I submit every year and who ever is drawn we will hunt together Not to Brag but I have become the go too guy for the calling. So I am always around. The best place to hunt them around here is a Marine base which is open to the public and the waterfowl blinds are precisely 500 yards apart (minimum by law) Well this particular day Its my buddy and his wife hunting. My buddy's wife and I have permits he dosn't. Well we get all set up and we are in the blind and get a bird to come in at first light BOOM!! My buddies wife is done! Now it's my turn well I look up the marsh and we have some late arrivals coming into the blind up from us. They get all settled in and the Swans start working back in around 9:30. So I am doing my thing calling and the way everything is set and the wind and the birds being so large needing room to circle they are going right over the other blind making there approach to us. Well the first 3 fly over and they cut loose one bird down I tell my buddy Well the have permits so now they only have one left! Sure enough a little while later another bunch come over and they cut loose again cripling one and knocking another down. I said B_ _ tards should have went after that criple before killing another. Well I said they are done anyway son of a guns have benefited from our spread and calling. So I am ready again and get another bunch to work over and I will be dam_ _ d if they didn't cut loose again and kill two more, I said to my buddy we have a problem now. Well this went on until 3:30 when the other guys picked up after killing 6 and cripling 2. When they started picking up my buddy said that he was going to call game check (On this base you have to check in and out at "Game Check" before and after hunting) and he and his wife were going to leave I decided to stay on and try and get my bird. Well I didn't get my bird and my buddy called me that evening and said that the guys had been stopped by the warden at game check and were getting ready to let them go? He said that the warden didn't know the difference between a snow goose and a swan The guys were claiming they were snows! Well my buddy told them to get the senior warden (who we know) which they did! by god he knew the difference and the rest is history hefty fines were issued and I never got my swan that year. A week after we had a freeze that kept the marsh froozen the rest of the season.