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.

 

[BeeMaa]

@BourbonTrail & @Inline6 - Fortunately both IGS and myself focus more on solutions than problems. Once I was in the water, it was time for solutions and not dwelling on what happened. Fault and blame have nothing to do with it. It's the act of intention. Neither of us meant for it to happen so let's focus on what we can do now to improve where we are at.

@BRICKBURN - We are only using one of the panels from a pop-up blind. It's about 5'x5' and folds up pretty small. They are just used at top cover because the deadfall in the middle of the river is our "blind" as the geese approach from below us.

Yesterdays numbers were still really good, but we got about 1/2 of the birds we saw opening day. Will be on the road shortly for another round.

 

[Altitude sickness]

It’s the those kind of days that make for the best stories. And make you appreciate the banner days.

Nice swing and follow through on the one bird killed on camera.

Your dilemmas remind me of our unguided float hunting for moose. 2 weeks on an Alaska River will quickly show the holes in your equipment and operation.

 

[HankBuck]

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 - You are a REAL “Waterfoweler” NOW — falling in is getting “Christened” and is likely to happen many times….January & ice being the most memorable. You earned every goose !

 

[BeeMaa]

3 SEP 2024 “The enemy gets a vote.” Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

The plan was to not mess with the success that we’ve had the past two day. Go to the spot in the river and wait for flights and strings to present shots. The take-out vehicle is in place and we drive to the drop-in with thoughts of flying feathers.

Water level is about the same it’s been for the past two days, but we are a little earlier than we’ve been before. This makes for a much darker river. Compounding our issue is there has been a temperature drop, it’s now in the mid 40’s instead of high 50’s…this means fog on the water. Can you see me setting up my excuses?

IGS is the first out and is about 50 yards in front of me as I make the walk across the rocks and plop down on the kayak. I’m getting situated, paddle, walking stick and everything else. I’m in a shallow pool but have turned sideways…not good. I paddle to get straight, hit a rock and the whole kayak flips over. Not the best start to the day.

 

[BeeMaa]

It’s not as bad as it was yesterday. Only one arm went to touch the bottom of the river and just a few cups or so went down the left side of my waders. I pop up and yell out “I’M DOWN” to alert IGS to just hold up a little bit while I sort things out. Everything was properly secured, but the SBE3 was completely underwater for about 30 seconds before I could retrieve it.

This is where the right gear is so important and using things like lanyards, ties, bungee…etc is so important. The Dive Bomb Blind Bag kept my important stuff dry and Sea-To-Summit bag did the same. I was able to flip the kayak over, retrieve the things that had lanyards, plop my (now wet) butt back in the seat and continue down river.

Sidebar – If you go into the water in the dark and don’t think you are going to flip, get wet, go unprepared by not tying stuff down and putting lanyards on…you could be in for a very long wet day. Possibly worse depending on conditions. Be prepared, have the right gear and don’t make doing it in the dark your first time out.

 

[BeeMaa]

We arrive at the site we had posted up at the past two days with good success. Here are a couple of quick videos of our setup. What a glorious morning and amazing view.

 

[BeeMaa]

We watch and the strings start to come. Higher than they have been the past two days and more off to our right. Well out of range. Another string comes and they fly overhead but are wicked high. We give it our best but lethal shots at that distance are not to be had by us. It seems that our adversary has been educated over the past couple of days and is not falling for the same old thing. The enemy has voted.

What the enemy didn’t count on is our friends in a farmer’s field about a mile away calling in the same birds that were peeling away from us. They had not downed a bird the first two days so this was great for them. Plus it’s glass half full for us, no birds to clean. Yeah, we got skunked but at least we are moving again so I can try to warm up my still soaked arms. LAUGH FACE

We take our time to pack up our gear and float down to the take-out, careful to scan the banks for possible cripples from the previous days. There are osprey, heron and a HUGE bald eagle…but no injured Canada geese. It was nice to relax and just float down the river without having to worry about anything else.

Back to the house to regroup and make a plan for tomorrow. Plus, I have to do another deep clean on the SBE3. I dumped a bunch of water out of it after being submerged and it still worked flawlessly, but when I opened it up at the house…lots of water still inside. I’m running out of CLP!

 

[BeeMaa]

4 SEP 2024 The day of the trainwreck.

I’m awoken by IGS coming into the guest house…I’ve overslept. Good thing I laid out everything I needed the night before. Within 5 minutes we are in the van headed to a farm field to hunt with some friends.

We arrive just moments before our friends do. Fortunately, we have permission from the farmer to drive on the field to set up our hide. Four guys in the front of the truck and my legs dangling from the tailgate we set out in the dark to the spot.

The set up is pretty simple with seven dozen Dive Bomb silhouettes of various shapes. The five layout blinds are set up in a row facing North on a slight downhill slant to keep our heads above our feet. The decoys are placed in a U-shape with the opening in front of the blinds.

I’m on the right side of the formation with IGS next to me and the person responsible for being able to hunt this field in the center. His name is Kenny and has two friends with him (Nestor and Roro) on his left. Kenny is a guide level goose caller; I’ve seen him do some incredible things calling in birds. He will be the main caller and announce “TAKE ‘EM” when it’s time. Nestor and Roro will also help with calling at Kenny’s direction.

 

[BeeMaa]

The early morning hours are so peaceful. The sun glistening off the wet grass and lighting up the sky…it’s a great day even if the birds decide to not show up.

It’s not long before we hear some honking coming from the river that’s just half a mile off. We cover up and get set. The birds are coming from behind us but are flying low. I’m watching them as they pass us off to my right and they are 30 yards off the ground and 50-60 yards away. They slow bank to their left as Kenny calls them to the decoys. I count a total of seven birds that are now flying directly at us and cupping in.

TAKE ‘EM! We erupt from our blinds and unload our shotguns as the birds are now falling left and right. There’s one that escaped off to our left, but wait…is that bird circling back in? He circles back and is now flying right to left in front of us at 35 yards. The guns now replenished with fresh loads topple the bird as it crashes to the grass.

Seven birds came in and none left, up here it’s called a trainwreck…no one gets out alive. More importantly no birds are left educated for the next time. Here's a quick pic of the carnage as we wrapped up for the day.