Many times as a guide you really don't know what to expect. I mean you have done your research, scouted, and basically lived with the same animals for 4 months. But like anything they are unpredictable.

January 30th 2005 was one of these examples. The field that we were going to had been hunted 4 of the last 7 days. It was hunted all day the day before. All of the previous days had lead to good results, but where they sustainable?

When we met our guys in the morning. All ten of them were ready to go. The ussuall questions of "Are we going to be limited out by 8 am, and "How many geese were in the field the day before" were asked. I gave my ussuall vague respnses of "Why ruin a good suprise", and "Don't ask me? I can't count."

Once everyone had purchased their coffee, and midmorning snacks, we got in our caravan of 7 or 8 rigs strong, and headed off to our destination 20 miles away.

Once arriving we starting setting out over 100 decoys. The decoys consisted of Drop Zones and Taxidermy decoys. The value of all the decoys was in the $10,000 range, and was quit a sight to see. We all hoped that it looked as good to the geese as it did to us.

When we had the last decoy set and the last Final Approach Eliminator set we sat back and enjoyed our coffee, and cigars (last day of the season tradition at North Flight Waterfowl). The morning had a low fog. If the fog dropped any more I knew we would have a tough day. But if the fog raised I felt we could really get into the geese.

As 8 am hit the first flocks of large Canadians started to move. I got our my call and started to call in my tradmark high pitcha and fast past sequence. In the first flock 3 pealed off from the goose and we dropped two of the geese. This was a hugh relief to me. It is very rare to not shoot any geese, but it is always nice to be on the board.

As the day prgressed we continued to have small flocks work us and come in. By about 10 I knew that the day was a success. We had about 20 geese in hand and the birds were still flying. By 1 pm we had 44 geese, and the day was officially a success.

Somtimes you might ot be in the best field. There ight not have been geese in the field the day before, which makes for a good hunt. But if you put a good goose caller, with good goose decoys in an area with a lot of geese flying over they will shoot geese. And a hunt that might not have seemed predictable, really was predidictable.

www.northflightwaterfowl

Ben Holten
(509)521-8387
P.O. Box 463
Richland, WA
99352