Picking Up Where I Left Off

by Rusty Hallock
Zink Calls
November 25, 2009

The first day of the 2009-2010 A.P. Canada goose season in Maryland found me picking up where I had left off at seasons end in January 2009.

I was fortunate enough to share the goose field with the same friends and family that I spent the last day of the 2008-2009 season. The only difference was we were hunting in a different cut corn field. Last season's field still had standing beans in the field. A lot of the farmers are way behind their harvest schedule because of a wet fall in the Mid-Atlantic.

We arrived at the field about 6 am to set up the decoy rig. Since it was the first day of the season, we decided to set about 75% of the spread. We did not want to show our entire hand on the first day of the season. After some careful brushing of our layout blinds, we settled in to wait for the first flight. Even though, it was the first day of the season, we still wanted to take care of our hide. We were hunting in a cut corn field but the farmer had "bush hogged" the field offering zero cover. In my opinion, your hide is the most important factor in a waterfowlers success or failure. By using the lay of the land, we were still able to hide 5 layout blinds with little to no cover. It was not long when the first flock of Canada geese approached from the rear. As the flock passed, we greeted them with a series of clucks from our SR-1's and Money Makers. This broke four geese from the flock. The geese dropped into the decoy spread without a single circle. As we rose from our layout blinds, the four geese were quickly down. We had delivered the first volley in the area. It was not long before there were a lot of geese in the air followed by numerous shots from hunting groups in the surrounding fields. With the number of geese in the air and the number of shots that were being fired in the area, I felt that I was on the Eastern Shore of Maryland even though I was on the less hunted and more populated Western Shore of Maryland.

During this past spring, the A.P. Canada goose hatch was poor due to a late winter. This poor hatch meant that this fall's migration was going to contain less juvenile birds and more adult birds. It did not take long for the bird's experience to show on the first day of the season. With all of the calling and shooting coming from the neighboring fields, the geese became more difficult to work into the spread. To finish off our limits, we worked the geese predominately with the use of a flag and soft clucks. By softening our calling and increasing our flagging, we quickly limited with two more tolls of geese. It was a great way to start our season as we had finished it 10 months prior.