Finishing Things Up Right
by Z-Unit Troy Bailey
The ending of the Nebraska dark goose season hadn't sat real well with me. The zone that I live in had closed a few weeks earlier and I had plans of getting out into the other zones in Nebraska to finish the season off right, but with fighting the flu and poor weather conditions, those plans soon turned to dreams.

I had been talking back and forth with good friend and fellow Z-Unit member, Sean Evans, whose Kansas dark goose season was still under way and had another two weeks left to go. He called me on Saturday morning to tell me about a spot he had found on the Kansas River. After spending just a few moments on the phone with Sean and him describing this spot to me, I knew where I was going to be the next morning.

I could hardly sleep that night with the sights and sounds of giant Canada geese back pedaling into well placed decoy spread running through my mind. By 3:00am I was out of bed, had Cass loaded up in the kennel and I was on my way to Kansas. After a short 2 and a half hour drive, I was there!

I met Sean and another good friend Jason Longhauser at the boat ramp. It didn't take use long to get a game plan together and to get the boat in the water. Low water levels and iced up channels didn't allow us get to the area where Sean had scouted the day prior so we had to settle for the next best thing. While we were making our way down the river, we came across a sand bar that was holding every bit of 3000 honkers. Through some slick maneuvering of the boat and the packing in of decoys, blinds and other gear, we made our set on this same sand bar where these birds sat just a few minutes earlier.

A spread of Greenhead Gear FFD full bodies and oversized sleeper shells on the ice in front of us surrounding a small pool of open water made for a great sales pitch. Once the geese started moving, it only took some soft, reassuring sounds from the Money Maker and Little Man that Sean and I were using to put these birds feet down right in front of us. Our three man limit of nine geese followed in short order and gave Cass some much enjoyed work.

This hunt definitely made up for some of my missed opportunities the week before, but little did I know it would only be the first edition of my late season Kansas goose hunting experiences.