Early Goose Season 2009 Opening Day

This being my third year of waterfowl hunting thanks to my son Michael, I figured that I should probably try my hand at field goose hunting for the early season this year. Since we have made a few new friends that happen to waterfowl hunt, we hooked up with them and gave it a run!

Opening day we met up with Mossy Oak Pro Staff member John McNamara and a friend of his to hit the goose fields. I was excited to try my hand at videotaping Mikey's hunt to see what I could capture on tape. This was a completely new experience for me since I had never stepped into a goose field at all. They designated me as the lawn mower which I didn't mind, I had to gather up enough brush to camouflage four ground blinds.

With that task finished we hunkered down to get ready for the arrival of the flocks. I was amazed at just how fast and how many birds came in after day break. It didn't take long for the shooting to start and the excitement to begin! The first group came in and the three of them took seven birds! I was running two cameras and captured it all on video! What a rush to see the geese come in so low and noisy! Once the shooting stopped the three of them hit the fields running after their game! As they were in the fields more started to fly in. Back into the blinds they jumped!

Opening Day Harvest

Once again another round of shooting and seven more fell! The limit was 5 for each person so that was it for the harvest! As we gathered up our belongings and the birds, a neighbor lady came running into the field screaming and crying! We were upsetting her because we shot "her birds"! Oh boy here we go! After the boohooing and crying stopped she told us we couldn't hunt there anymore and she would see to it that we didn't, sure enough she had enough pull with the farmer that John lost that field. She actually told us she was an activist! Can you say hunter harassment! John didn't want to push the issue since the farmer had other fields he was allowing him to hunt.

This crap really upsets me, they squawk and we get shut down because the farmer doesn't want to deal with it. Come on guys! The farmers that want to continue to hunt, lease, allow people to hunt, etc… have to start standing up for their rights as well as the people he lets on his property! If you've been following my blogs and podcast you know how I feel on the issue. Since I was a guest on the hunt, I didn't say much!

Other than that though, the hunt was awesome and I was hooked even though I didn't carry a gun into the fields!