The Kids' First Day Out of 2009

by Erik Nilsson
Zink Calls Pro-Staff
5 September 2009
Location: Western PA
Hunters: Shaun Smith, Tommy Stoughton, Mat Nilsson, Zink Calls® Pro-Staffer Erik Nilsson

With having our opener this past week and the kids were in school, My friend Shaun and I spent a couple of days scouting to find some fresh birds that the kids could get an opportunity for this years first geese.  In my travels I noticed several flocks working an area but I could not find where they were going to. I had a feeling that they were using a hidden field. I called Shaun and we met the evening before to see if we could come up with an exact location.  We went in different directions and it wasn't long, he gave me a call on the cell and had located the birds. Unfortunately they were in a non huntable tract of land.  We discussed how we could get the best opportunity to run traffic on them.

We headed over to the adjacent property and got permission from the landowner. He had an old wheat field that he no tilled and said that some birds had been in and out his field this past week.  We decided to give it a try, made our plans to meet and headed home to get everything ready. 

We had a full moon that night so we decided to meet a little early in the morning thinking that the birds might go sooner and with it being a Saturday, We wanted to make sure we were ready in plenty of time. We didn't need headlamps for the moon gave us enough light to get everything out into the field. We decided to hunt on the edge of the wheat and a fresh cut hayfield. We grassed up our blinds to the point where they became invisible in the stubble. The stubble was about 12" tall giving up plenty of vegetation to hide in. We decided to sit in front of the spread and place the majority of the decoys behind us with the landing zone right were we were sitting. We set out 6 of the lessers loosely spread out in front of us and created a nice open pocket just behind the blinds. The field had a nice roll in it so we used that to our advantage for we thought that any approaching geese would follow the contour of the land and once they crest the roll in the field we would be right there to surprise them.

Ready to go, we waited for the first flock of the morning.  We had a flock approach from the south and check out the spread but decided to head off to the property we couldn't hunt. We almost had them but they just didn't give us a good shot. Farther off, we could hear more geese and they were working in our direction. As they approached, We gave them a few waves of the Power flag and they locked up on our position, it was a good size flock of 30 or so birds. They did exactly what we wanted them to do on the flight path. They disappeared just below the crown of the field and bam! They were right on top of us!.  I called the shot and the guns opened up on one surprised flock. Our first volley gave us 10 birds. The boys were into it now and ready for the next flock to appear.  Geese traded in and out on us all morning long giving the boys good opportunities. Later, the wind had stopped giving some birds an advantage but a couple more flocks committed to where we wanted them to be.

We decided to pack it up late morning making sure that we cleaned up the field of hulls, trying to leave it like we were never there.  Thanking the farmer for letting us hunt, we headed home to clean some geese.