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AH elite
At 5 am, a jet-black, star studded sky welcomed my family to the prairie as we hauled heavy bags of decoys onto a stubble field. I looked up just as a shooting star crossed the milky way, I wished that today might be our lucky day.
Though it was brisk, it was not as cold as sometimes could be expected on a late October goose hunt in Alberta. Assembling the decoys happened naturally, the routine had been developed throughout my entire childhood. “Let’s have most of them feeding, only put a few looking up.” Dad had many decades of waterfowl hunting under his belt, and this season, the number of scouting hours he had clocked was crazy. Hands worked at warp speed as the horizon began showing the first signs of waking.
Unlike often in nature, it was far from quiet. Thousands of snow geese were causing a ruckus and bobbing with the waves on a small lake on the other side of the large field. When they started thinking of taking flight, their honks went up an octave. We hoped they wouldn’t take off before we were set up, or before legal shooting light.
A line of family members sporting white painter’s coveralls sat amongst white decoys. Your rank in the family reflected your seating, there were only so many chairs available. If you were the Dad, well, seniority paid off. If you were the unfortunate future son in law, the frozen ground would have to suffice. Behind us, the horizon was painted in hues of violet, soft pinks, and autumn orange. Ducks left the water first. Then, the first flock of white lifted off and started coming our way.
My dad and uncle had invested in new decoys, so we had a nice spread! Let’s hope the geese thought so too. As the birds flew closer, we hit play on our Fox Pro and a sequence of snow geese played on full blast. This species is damaging the Arctic tundra, its large population over-grazing the delicate vegetation. Hence, Alberta has now introduced a spring season, upped the daily bag limit to fifty, and legalized the use of electronic calls. Shotguns poised, the geese came overhead and within range. “Take em!” Two over-under’s and three semi-auto’s opened up. The first few dropped out of the sky and the hunt was on!
Flock after flock paid a visit to our feeding party, and our spread rapidly gained many more natural decoys. I proudly added my first ever (and then second) duck to my count. Our black labradors being retired, and well, too black, were not along on this hunt, so we had to do the retrieving ourselves. Every few flocks we would jump up and run into the fields, collecting the birds to prevent new visitors from spooking at these objects laying outside of the arrangement. With the rising sun, the field before us gained a golden glow and gave the affair a nice ambience.
At times, there would “only” be groups of two’s or three’s above us, at others I would estimate closer to a thousand. The minutes between shots were sparse. Shells were about to run out, so we rationed. If only we’d taken more, but who would have predicted that we would have the best shoot of our lives that morning?
A rainbow assortment of empty shells ejected onto the ground, quantifying our hits and misses. As we wandered further out into the stubble to recover a few distant birds, we spotted a white field in the distance. Had it snowed? The entire landscape was cloaked with feathers, there were thousands of birds feeding on the next farmer’s field. Goose hunting is all about careful planning, considering the wind, and gambling where the birds might head. Luckily, we had chosen the right flyway that morning.
Later on, when the birds began showing disinterest in feeding and were rather flying back to water, we counted our day’s bag. 55 geese and 8 ducks adorned the ground’s flaxen stubble. Out of the geese, only one mature snow joined the rows. The rest were all juvenile, yearling geese in a somewhat darker shade of white, and most definitely tender! The green and purple tones of mallard’s feathers, the drake’s yellow beaks, and their orange legs added variation to the prairie.
We deconstructed the decoys and paid a visit to the farmers whose fields we were hunting, to thank them for the permission. Next step, home to process the meat. Needless to say, we will be eating goose and duck the next few months. Thanks to past experience and a few fantastic cooks in the family, the possibilities are endless, and so is the supply! Last night: duck in orange sauce. Tonight: goose breast pizza. Tomorrow: goose bolognese. Bon appétit!
Though their reputation may not be as shiny as a precious metal, for us that morning, these avifauna were Alberta’s white gold.
Author:
Savanna Koebisch
The German-Canadian Savanna Koebisch was only 12 weeks old when her parents took her hunting for the first time. Her childhood and youth were marked by outdoor and hunting adventures around the world, and hunting has become an integral part of her daily life. She recently moved from her home in Alberta to Bournemouth, UK to study chiropractic.
