Hunting the Weather

With the forecast for snow begining after Midnite and continuing into the morning, Charlie and I headed south for the duck hunting club. We watched the Bama v. Texas game and then an early rise Friday morning. It was snowing lightly as we approached Speakman's Blind. We could see loads of Canada geese cooped on the open water near the blind. Most of the river was iced up. Rather than put out duck decoys,we decided to change strategy and head for the field to hunt the geese...they were certain to get up in groups after sunrise and fly over. I had stopped at K-Mart and bought 3 cans of that fake snow spray that people use on their windows for Christmas decor. Charlie and I used the spray to put a coat of white camo on the Final Approach layout blinds to blend with the snow. We spread about 3 dozen goose full body and shell decoys over the snowy field and hunkered down to wait. We smoked cigars and talked about books (Hemingway, Conn Iggulden,Wilbur Smith, Patrick O'Brien and others) game recipes and general bull.....then the birds began to stir. The first few groups were a bit out of range and we let them pass. The next few were not so lucky. With some light calling we had geese coming in. Charlie dropped the first and I whacked another on the next flight. When I was out of the blind grabbing my harvest another flight came over and Charlie popped a beautiful double. A great morning. As an aside, we learned through empirical evidence that the 3 inch " Hevi-shot" shells Charlie was using hit really hard at long range. The 3 inch steel # 2's I was using hit like a grade school girl in comparison. We cannot wait for more weather and hope to have a crack at some of the big ducks we saw flying!