Bird Hunting story and Picture (it's a long one)
01-30-2004, 10:50 AM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 801
Bird Hunting story and Picture (it's a long one)
Someone asked for good bird hunting stories.. this happened this year, and every word is true ….. I’ve been laughed at by every one I know already about this .. may as well add you all to the group as well. As a warning .. it is VERY LONG!
It was early fall here in New England, duck and goose season hadn’t been open all that long, and I believe that pheasant season was a week or so old. The weather was cool, but not yet cold, a gorgeous autumn day.
I picked up my 19 year old brother while it was still pitch black out. He’s just started to “come back” to hunting .. the young girls he likes to chase had distracted him the last few years. We drove north to our favorite farm we love to hunt along the Nashua River, the whole time my Springer, Piper hardly controlled the shakes she was experiencing from the excitement of hunting with her 2 favorite people. We got to the field in the dark and just released Piper to burn off all that early season energy a 2 ½ year old dog has, while we set up a dozen goose decoys in the cut corn and about a ½ dozen duck decoys in small cove of the river. We set up in the brush line that divided them; a perfect set up that has worked for us in the past. The plan was to greet the day trying to lure some ducks and geese into our setup and as the morning flight started to die down, pack up all the gear, put on the orange and hunt the field and edges for pheasant and grouse. As we waited for legal shooting light I called Piper back to the blind, and she took up her spot waiting for ducks and geese. To be honest here, Piper only sits in a blind for me because she’s a great dog and loves to please me. If she had her way, we’d never be sitting still waiting for birds to come to us, we’d be kicking them up out of brush piles and thorn bushes .. but she’s a good dog and usually can contain herself for a few hours .. if of course she gets to retrieve birds with some kind of regularity.
As the lights started to come on the ducks were already flying .. you could hear the whistling of their wings as they cruised the river on their way to breakfast. We were set off of the main river channel in a cove so we tried to coax a few birds to join their plastic buddies. At about 1 minute after legal shooting light .. the first teal came in to the spread to check things out, and BAM BAM BAM BAM!!!! My brother and I in short order managed to not even ruffle a feather on either of the 2 ducks that were now breaking the speed barrier on their way to Florida. For the next five minutes we had to endure the evil looks of Piper who was obviously not impressed with our marksmanship. See, sitting in a blind is torture for her .. but the joy of splashing into the water to fetch a duck makes the long tedious waits bearable for her. So be prepared for attitude if you miss….
Next group of ducks come through and I actually remember to think tail, body, head, Bang .. and Piper gets to swim for the first time. My brother didn’t remember the little ditty .. and all he’s got going is an ever-growing pile of plastic .. which myself and Piper keep reminding him about. In short order we’ve got 2 ducks in the blind and the action really starts to slow down. Giving me plenty of time to mock my brother’s lack of shooting ability … amazing how 2 birds in the hand make you Tom Knapp.
As the sun starts to just start to show it’s face off in the distance we start to hear that beautiful melodic music drift into the blind .. the honking of geese in the distance. We quickly turn our backs on the river and pull out the flutes and I start trying to coax those big Canadians in to our field. Helped by 2 guys about 400 yards down the same field we had those geese coming our way in short order. A flock of about 12, they were coming in on a string. Quickly it became obvious the guys we were sharing the field with were better on the calls, because the geese committed to there set up. I told my brother to get ready because we were down wind of their spread and we met get a passing shot at their escapees. It worked perfect .. the dozen or so geese were almost on the ground when our field mates opened up … and in less time than it took to type this they were limited out .. 2 geese each. The remaining 8, almost as if they knew the plan, started right at us. As they were flying low over the field right at us about ½ peeled off while 4 came in straight on about 30 yards up. At the same exact moment we opened up together .. and we must have been aiming at the same goose because we rocked it! Amazingly it didn’t drop .. but tried to climb and we tag teamed it again, I quickly tried to swing on a different bird but out of the corner of my eye saw my brother put his third and final shot into that bird as it came crashing through the trees to land with a giant splash about 3 feet from shore. I never got my 3rd shot off and fired up the call and amazingly the remaining birds started circling the field, giving us time to reload. After a few minutes it became obvious they weren’t coming into gun range again so we decided to retrieve our 1 goose… and this is where my long story gets good.
I grabbed my shotgun and released Piper with a “Fetch it up” command. I walked up the bank to where the bird should have been and noticed the limp goose about 20 yards off shore. Piper could have pulled a skier she was cruising so fast to fetch the goose, and when she got to it she clamped down on the wing to drag it back. As soon as her first tooth touched feather the goose exploded! Mr. Limp Goose turned into the Mike Tyson of the fowl world and started biting my Piper on the head and face, while kicking her with it’s feet and beating her with it’s wings. Piper, not being an overly large pooch, pushing the scales at just over 45 lbs gave that goose hell right back. I could hear her growling and snapping trying to get a good hold on that crazed goose. They danced around in the water for what felt like 10 minutes but was probably closer to 1 minute with my brother and I yelling and screaming to urge on Piper! I swear I heard a bell ring and Piper said screw this crap and turned and headed back to shore a beaten dog. In utter shock that this bird just beat up my dog I did nothing as she climbed up on shore .. shook herself off and stared at me, clearly making her displeasure with our lack of a clean kill apparent. My brother was the first to notice our lone goose trying to sneak away across the river, so he grabbed my shotgun and clearly blasted the goose again, for the 6th time! Now about 35 yards out, floating upside down with it’s head under water and feet straight to the sky, I gave the “Fetch it up” command. Without hesitation Piper dove on in and motored out to the goose and clamped onto it… and that damn bell rang again and Mr. Possum goose wakes from the dead for round 2! This battle is a mirror image of the first, Piper gave it everything but this demon-possessed goose was not coming in! After about a minute and now out about 40 yards, Piper calls Uncle and comes back in. This time the goose isn’t screwing around, it gives itself a shake and miraculously every feather is back in place and it starts motoring out into the river. My brother lets it have it 1 more time and we clearly see this bird in the middle of the shot pattern, but it doesn’t even flinch! Now to clarify .. we’re shooting 12 gauges, with a combo of Tungsten Iron Federal loads and Hevi Shot in 2’s and 4’s! We’re not shooting the crap stuff here!!!!
Now we’re crazed .. we NEED to get this goose! We all run down the field together to the 2 guys we are sharing the field with, who we haven’t met before, and beg to borrow their small flat bottomed john boat. They’ve been watching the show and without hesitation toss us 2 oars and say Giddyup! Nice guys those 2. My brother jumps to the front of the boat with my shot gun and an oar, I take the rear and Piper wasn’t about to be left behind so she jumps in the middle. We about get that boat on plane in pursuit of the immortal goose, which is cruising down river away from us. We get about 50 yards from the goose and Piper can’t take it anymore, maybe it was her wounded pride but she leaps over the side and heads after our quarry quickly passing the john boat and reaching the bionic goose! Round 3 isn’t any prettier .. those 2 are really going off on each other, Piper is giving as good as she is getting, but soon she says screw this and heads back to the boat. My brother drops the oar and grabs the shotgun like Quequeg on the Pequod and let’s loose a blast from less than 20 yards. The goose feels this one .. and slowly, inverts and goes into the final abyss, feet to the heavens and head to the deep. Piper, sensing the beast is dead … slowly approaches the bird and tentatively grabs a wing tip. This time, not getting violently attacked! She slowly drags the goose back to the boat, and my brother reaches down and grabs it, half expecting it to come to life and unleash holy terror on him. At this point, there isn’t much left to the goose… we stare in amazement at this bionic critter, because it is evident, it should have stopped kicking LONG ago. We grab to pooch and drag her aboard and slowly paddle back to shore .. feeling pretty proud of ourselves. The row back to the field was great, we got to watch 3 large groups of geese land in our untended decoys to help pass the time.
Back at the field, we thanked the nice guys for letting us borrow the boat .. they looked at us a little funny, and didn’t want to talk much, go figure? Of course all the geese in our decoys have left by now, all 60+ of them, but we decide to stick around and try for more action. We put what remained of the goose down next to our 2 dead ducks and set back up. What happens next, can not be explained. 10 minutes later, a good 30 minutes since we put that goose in the boat, without any warning .. that impossibly tough critter jumps up, broken neck and all … and starts running for the river!!!! In a flash the 3 of us were on it .. and we don’t need to describe what happened next, but shortly thereafter we took this picture of the 3 of us with the Toughest Goose ever to fly the Atlantic flyway!
It was early fall here in New England, duck and goose season hadn’t been open all that long, and I believe that pheasant season was a week or so old. The weather was cool, but not yet cold, a gorgeous autumn day.
I picked up my 19 year old brother while it was still pitch black out. He’s just started to “come back” to hunting .. the young girls he likes to chase had distracted him the last few years. We drove north to our favorite farm we love to hunt along the Nashua River, the whole time my Springer, Piper hardly controlled the shakes she was experiencing from the excitement of hunting with her 2 favorite people. We got to the field in the dark and just released Piper to burn off all that early season energy a 2 ½ year old dog has, while we set up a dozen goose decoys in the cut corn and about a ½ dozen duck decoys in small cove of the river. We set up in the brush line that divided them; a perfect set up that has worked for us in the past. The plan was to greet the day trying to lure some ducks and geese into our setup and as the morning flight started to die down, pack up all the gear, put on the orange and hunt the field and edges for pheasant and grouse. As we waited for legal shooting light I called Piper back to the blind, and she took up her spot waiting for ducks and geese. To be honest here, Piper only sits in a blind for me because she’s a great dog and loves to please me. If she had her way, we’d never be sitting still waiting for birds to come to us, we’d be kicking them up out of brush piles and thorn bushes .. but she’s a good dog and usually can contain herself for a few hours .. if of course she gets to retrieve birds with some kind of regularity.
As the lights started to come on the ducks were already flying .. you could hear the whistling of their wings as they cruised the river on their way to breakfast. We were set off of the main river channel in a cove so we tried to coax a few birds to join their plastic buddies. At about 1 minute after legal shooting light .. the first teal came in to the spread to check things out, and BAM BAM BAM BAM!!!! My brother and I in short order managed to not even ruffle a feather on either of the 2 ducks that were now breaking the speed barrier on their way to Florida. For the next five minutes we had to endure the evil looks of Piper who was obviously not impressed with our marksmanship. See, sitting in a blind is torture for her .. but the joy of splashing into the water to fetch a duck makes the long tedious waits bearable for her. So be prepared for attitude if you miss….
Next group of ducks come through and I actually remember to think tail, body, head, Bang .. and Piper gets to swim for the first time. My brother didn’t remember the little ditty .. and all he’s got going is an ever-growing pile of plastic .. which myself and Piper keep reminding him about. In short order we’ve got 2 ducks in the blind and the action really starts to slow down. Giving me plenty of time to mock my brother’s lack of shooting ability … amazing how 2 birds in the hand make you Tom Knapp.
As the sun starts to just start to show it’s face off in the distance we start to hear that beautiful melodic music drift into the blind .. the honking of geese in the distance. We quickly turn our backs on the river and pull out the flutes and I start trying to coax those big Canadians in to our field. Helped by 2 guys about 400 yards down the same field we had those geese coming our way in short order. A flock of about 12, they were coming in on a string. Quickly it became obvious the guys we were sharing the field with were better on the calls, because the geese committed to there set up. I told my brother to get ready because we were down wind of their spread and we met get a passing shot at their escapees. It worked perfect .. the dozen or so geese were almost on the ground when our field mates opened up … and in less time than it took to type this they were limited out .. 2 geese each. The remaining 8, almost as if they knew the plan, started right at us. As they were flying low over the field right at us about ½ peeled off while 4 came in straight on about 30 yards up. At the same exact moment we opened up together .. and we must have been aiming at the same goose because we rocked it! Amazingly it didn’t drop .. but tried to climb and we tag teamed it again, I quickly tried to swing on a different bird but out of the corner of my eye saw my brother put his third and final shot into that bird as it came crashing through the trees to land with a giant splash about 3 feet from shore. I never got my 3rd shot off and fired up the call and amazingly the remaining birds started circling the field, giving us time to reload. After a few minutes it became obvious they weren’t coming into gun range again so we decided to retrieve our 1 goose… and this is where my long story gets good.
I grabbed my shotgun and released Piper with a “Fetch it up” command. I walked up the bank to where the bird should have been and noticed the limp goose about 20 yards off shore. Piper could have pulled a skier she was cruising so fast to fetch the goose, and when she got to it she clamped down on the wing to drag it back. As soon as her first tooth touched feather the goose exploded! Mr. Limp Goose turned into the Mike Tyson of the fowl world and started biting my Piper on the head and face, while kicking her with it’s feet and beating her with it’s wings. Piper, not being an overly large pooch, pushing the scales at just over 45 lbs gave that goose hell right back. I could hear her growling and snapping trying to get a good hold on that crazed goose. They danced around in the water for what felt like 10 minutes but was probably closer to 1 minute with my brother and I yelling and screaming to urge on Piper! I swear I heard a bell ring and Piper said screw this crap and turned and headed back to shore a beaten dog. In utter shock that this bird just beat up my dog I did nothing as she climbed up on shore .. shook herself off and stared at me, clearly making her displeasure with our lack of a clean kill apparent. My brother was the first to notice our lone goose trying to sneak away across the river, so he grabbed my shotgun and clearly blasted the goose again, for the 6th time! Now about 35 yards out, floating upside down with it’s head under water and feet straight to the sky, I gave the “Fetch it up” command. Without hesitation Piper dove on in and motored out to the goose and clamped onto it… and that damn bell rang again and Mr. Possum goose wakes from the dead for round 2! This battle is a mirror image of the first, Piper gave it everything but this demon-possessed goose was not coming in! After about a minute and now out about 40 yards, Piper calls Uncle and comes back in. This time the goose isn’t screwing around, it gives itself a shake and miraculously every feather is back in place and it starts motoring out into the river. My brother lets it have it 1 more time and we clearly see this bird in the middle of the shot pattern, but it doesn’t even flinch! Now to clarify .. we’re shooting 12 gauges, with a combo of Tungsten Iron Federal loads and Hevi Shot in 2’s and 4’s! We’re not shooting the crap stuff here!!!!
Now we’re crazed .. we NEED to get this goose! We all run down the field together to the 2 guys we are sharing the field with, who we haven’t met before, and beg to borrow their small flat bottomed john boat. They’ve been watching the show and without hesitation toss us 2 oars and say Giddyup! Nice guys those 2. My brother jumps to the front of the boat with my shot gun and an oar, I take the rear and Piper wasn’t about to be left behind so she jumps in the middle. We about get that boat on plane in pursuit of the immortal goose, which is cruising down river away from us. We get about 50 yards from the goose and Piper can’t take it anymore, maybe it was her wounded pride but she leaps over the side and heads after our quarry quickly passing the john boat and reaching the bionic goose! Round 3 isn’t any prettier .. those 2 are really going off on each other, Piper is giving as good as she is getting, but soon she says screw this and heads back to the boat. My brother drops the oar and grabs the shotgun like Quequeg on the Pequod and let’s loose a blast from less than 20 yards. The goose feels this one .. and slowly, inverts and goes into the final abyss, feet to the heavens and head to the deep. Piper, sensing the beast is dead … slowly approaches the bird and tentatively grabs a wing tip. This time, not getting violently attacked! She slowly drags the goose back to the boat, and my brother reaches down and grabs it, half expecting it to come to life and unleash holy terror on him. At this point, there isn’t much left to the goose… we stare in amazement at this bionic critter, because it is evident, it should have stopped kicking LONG ago. We grab to pooch and drag her aboard and slowly paddle back to shore .. feeling pretty proud of ourselves. The row back to the field was great, we got to watch 3 large groups of geese land in our untended decoys to help pass the time.
Back at the field, we thanked the nice guys for letting us borrow the boat .. they looked at us a little funny, and didn’t want to talk much, go figure? Of course all the geese in our decoys have left by now, all 60+ of them, but we decide to stick around and try for more action. We put what remained of the goose down next to our 2 dead ducks and set back up. What happens next, can not be explained. 10 minutes later, a good 30 minutes since we put that goose in the boat, without any warning .. that impossibly tough critter jumps up, broken neck and all … and starts running for the river!!!! In a flash the 3 of us were on it .. and we don’t need to describe what happened next, but shortly thereafter we took this picture of the 3 of us with the Toughest Goose ever to fly the Atlantic flyway!
02-02-2004, 02:14 PM
#2
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Cottage Grove OREGON USA
Posts: 138
RE: Bird Hunting story and Picture (it's a long one)
Great story. I've been in your shoes before. 2 years ago I ran out of ammo pursueing a wounded goose. In a pinch a boat paddle to the head will put em' down. 
I love to hear about Springers doing waterfowl work. I have a 3 1/2 yr. old that does double duty quite a bit. She weighs a whopping 33 pounds so the 17 lb. Canadas make her back feet come off the ground when she picks them up. I also got a lab so she handles the lively ones.
I love to hear about Springers doing waterfowl work. I have a 3 1/2 yr. old that does double duty quite a bit. She weighs a whopping 33 pounds so the 17 lb. Canadas make her back feet come off the ground when she picks them up. I also got a lab so she handles the lively ones.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
Scott/IL
Bowhunting
38
11-19-2008 06:27 PM
