USA: Conservation Goose Hunt NY 2024

[HankBuck]

I would say that the right gear is important and goose hunting has a lot to do with debris mitigation. Keeping water out of your shotgun, ammo and the other gear you brought probably being the biggest one. I did have to buy another waterproof bag to carry my "kill kit" and food. Nothing fancy, just a 13L dry bag from Sea to Summit. By the end of the day, I knew it was a good purchase.

I'll go over some of the things things that worked well and where I may have overpacked. For now it looks like I'm close to the sweet spot considering the expected weather.

TSS...aaaah yes. The forever debate of cost vs lethality. I'll say that we shot more shells than I expected. Of the birds recovered, only three required a finishing shot. Most of the ones we hit were falling hard. Most notably, there was one that IGS shot that landed on a flat rock with the loudest of thumps. Several more landed in the wood, again there was just a loud THUD. We did recover some cripples that floated down the river to us as all efforts were made to recover every bird.

In truth, everyone knows the answer...we will never know if there would have been a difference if we had been using steel, bismith, Hevi-Shot...etc. What I do know is that at the heights we were shooting at, we had some incredible results. I would say it's a testament to the longer range capability of TSS vs other shells. I've shot high birds with other shot and it did not have near the results that we got yesterday. I'm still firmly in the TSS camp, and others are free to make their own choices.

@BeeMaa - i think TSS owes YOU a full “Sponsorship” and at a minimum a FREE CASE of Ammo because your results and sharing such with a large OnLine Forum of Hunters has certainly driven sales for that company !! Plus - I actually BELIEVE You vs. the marketing departments of major ammo manufacturers ….YOU tell the TRUTH

 

[Inline6]

Great Job! Hope the both of you keep shooting straight! Looking forward to the daily reports.

 

[BeeMaa]

2 SEP 2024 “The best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry” Robert Burns

Early rise, coffee and on the road. We drop the kayaks in, but the water level is a little lower slowing our progress. The sunrise lights up the sky as our spot approaches with some time to spare. The blind panels are set up and there are geese flying directly towards our position.

I lift my shotgun, click off the safety and take aim…three shots erupt from my barrel as the geese continue to fly. None even appear to be phased in the slightest. I look over at IGS…he’s inspecting his shotgun and obviously has an issue.

I keep an eye downstream as IGS disassembles and reassembles…he tries again, nope. Something is wrong and we are not going to find the solution in the middle of the river, so IGS retires the Browning Maxus for the morning.

 

[BeeMaa]

IGS looks at the glass as being half full, no shotgun gives him an opportunity to document the hunt with pictures and video. Something we haven’t done in the past and thought it might be a nice addition to a hunt report. I’d shot a few times, we are seeing strings of geese…not like yesterday, but still good ones.

IGS calls out “GEESE” and the honking is coming from down river. I grab the SBE3 and ready myself, completely unaware that I’m being filmed. There they are, I line up the shot…and this is the rest of it.

This was problem number two.

 

[BeeMaa]

Turns out my gun was out of ammo when I put it down and never checked it when I picked it up. I was pissed but still laughed at my own inattention to detail. However all the news wasn’t bad this day and it wasn’t long before I redeemed myself with a little help with some TSS BB/7.

 

[BeeMaa]

But the news isn’t all good either. Earlier in the morning IGS realized that shortly after getting off his kayak that his paddle was missing. We look around in the sticks thinking that it might be among them with no luck. This is not good considering we have more than two miles to the take-out point with both rocky, deep and fast portions to go through. This was problem number three.

Problem four was pretty simple. I took off my hat before taking off my headlamp and into the drink it went…never to be seen again. Damn it! Ahh well, I’ll pick one up later.

We recover our geese, and I sit in my kayak to breast them out. This isn’t a particularly stable kayak with the flow of the river pinning it to large pieces of driftwood, but it works OK for the five I had to do. I clean up, pack up and we are looking to head out.

 

[BeeMaa]

IGS and I talk about how many we would have gotten if his shotgun hadn’t malfunctioned, we are estimating at least double the five we did get for a total of around 10…always the “what if’s” with hunters.

I’m in the kayak holding the driftwood and IGS is also holding my kayak but standing up, showing me the way through the rapids just below. I’m holding the driftwood because I haven’t yet secured my shotgun to the kayak. As IGS pulls my kayak away, I lose it and fall directly into the water.

The good news? I still have ahold of the shotgun and pop up a moment later, pissed and wet, but none the worse for wear. Everything else in the kayak was secure, so nothing was lost. What was gained was about five gallons of water down the top of my chest waders. Damn that water was cold, but it's not worth crying about. That was problem five.

 

[BeeMaa]

It’s a long row to the take-out. I spend the time trying to be positive about what all has happened today. We had a plan. It was a good plan, not perfect but damn good. We took our lumps and managed to also take some geese.

I think about the ones that got away. Bad shots I took, high geese out of range of even the mighty TSS, wounded birds we were unable to recover. If I let myself, it would be easy to go to a dark place for all that went wrong today.

I choose to be positive. We took geese. I fell in the water but maintained a hold on the shotgun and it will be just fine. A trip to the store replaced the headlamp. Oh, and the paddle that IGS lost…we found about 150 yards downstream caught in the shallow rapids.

Later in the afternoon and YT video showed IGS what he may have done wrong while reassembling his shotgun. We made corrections, shot it for testing and are looking forward to tomorrow.

Here’s one more quick video of the high flyers. I’ll ask IGS to clean his camera lens next time. LOL.

 

[BourbonTrail]

Sorry for the rough luck, but good on you keeping your mind on the task and out of your troubles.

 

[Inline6]

It is not bad luck, it's a story to tell and a lesson learned. We have all had something happen, sharing with other will help some prep better. It will also let different people understand it will not be perfectly every time.

Good on the both of you for making the best out of it.

 

[BRICKBURN]

Thanks for reducing the vermin population.

That Kayak / Blind scenario just looks like one hell of a rodeo. Well done for getting it sorted.

It's great to watch you guys figure it out on the run.