Hunters...Part 2

Dam its cold! I am lying in a harvested wheat field just about a quarter mile from the Big Horn River. I have a burlap bag over me that is covered with straw and I am surrounded by goose decoys. There is about a two inch covering of cold white snow over the field. It all started with a phone call a few nights back. My brother Ron was on the other end with this “guaranteed not to fail” goose hunt plan. My brother is most likely the best hunter I have ever known. In all the hunting trips I have made in my life, the most successful have been with Ronny. So here we are on a cold, cold Saturday morning just before dawn. The plan is simple. Ronny has scouted out this field and noticed that the geese feed here every morning. Execution of the plan is what becomes difficult. This field is approximately 100 acres, so large that the geese can land on the other end and we won’t even see them. We set out our decoys, covered ourselves with loose straw and we are now waiting for the sun to come up. Just as the sun starts to peak over the Big Horn Mountains, Ronny starts blowing on his goose caller. I can hear geese honking as they follow the river but none are turning our way. I swear it is getting colder. My shotgun is lying by my side under the burlap cover, and I begin to worry that if a flock of geese was to fly over, my hands are too cold to pull the trigger. Now a flock of about fifty geese are heading our way but they are too high. The geese circle and come back over us but are still too high. They circle again and Ronny starts in on his goose caller and again they just pass over us. We are laying in the rows south to north and as the geese fly over us going south they pass over our heads and we lose sight of them. I can hear them honking and circling around behind us. Ronny is still calling them in. It sounds like they are getting closer. Just as Ronny tells me to get ready, because this time they will be close enough, a set of wings and goose legs fly right over my head not more than four feet above us. Ronny has called them in right on top of us. We jump out of our cover to take aim and the geese are so close we don’t know what to do. Their wings are almost touching the end of our gun barrels. We have to wait for them to fly away to get a shot. Finally I am able to fire twice and two geese fall. Ronny fires once and two geese fall. We have our daily limit with only three shots fired.

We gather our decoys and geese and head back to the pick-up. We have to pass Wilford’s house on the way back so we stop to show him our geese and tell him our hunting story. In our conversation with Will, I state that I still need to get some venison to take home with my geese. He says that a four point buck just went into the hay field next to his house. If I go to the other end of the field with a rifle, he and Ronny will walk through the field and push the deer out the other end. Just as Wilford describes it, the buck runs right in front of me and I fire one shot and the deer drops. I now have two geese and a deer to take home. I look at my watch and it is only 9 a.m. and my hunting day with Ron is already over. Ronny says “next week lets go elk hunting” and I can’t wait.