Field Staffer Kyle Steele's Turkey

My favorite pic of this year

First Hunt of the New Year

On this hunt we hooked up with my good buddy Jeff Neal and Ed Dewey. Urban and I had a good field scouted out with about 200 Canada's in it. We met Jeff and Ed there about 2PM and set-up the spread of about 6-7 dozen decoys which consisted of GHG FFD Lessers, Hardcore Lessers, and Dakota Brand decoys. We weren't setup very long when the first flock was headed our way. The first flocked worked us and then landed about 45 yards to the West of us. Well after popping up and dropping 3 of them, we decided to move the spread around to prevent other flocks from landing on the outside of the spread. Well it turned out it worked as the next flock came right in to the killzone and we dropped 5 out of the that flock. The last flock we decoyed was a flock of 6 and we dropped 4 out that flock to get our limit. This was a fun, fast hunt full of action. This was also Ed's first real goose hunt and he has the fever now.

X-Mas Eve Slaughter

This day was a weird one. The afternoon after Austin and myself limited out and got the band we scouted a field right behind my house that was full of geese. So we called some buddies and had 6 people lined up to go out in the morning. Well we got setup that morning and the snow we were supposed to get never showed up and neither did the geese. We did end up shooting 2 Snow geese that came by our spread, but that was it for the morning hunt. Well fellow DrakeTakers Pro-Staffer Austin Urban and Field-Staffer Jordan Lowe were the only 2 guys able to go out that afternoon with me. We setup with about 6 dozen decoys that consisted of GHG's, Hardcores, BigFoots and Dakota and about 2 dozen GHG Mallard FB's. We had shot 7 Canada's and were watching Snow Geese pour into the field next to us. Every flock of Canada's and Mallards that flew over us after the Snows landed went straight to the other field. I knew eventually the Snows would walk and field-hop their way into our spread and sure enough they did. After we let about half of the flock of 3500 walk past us looking for neck collars we decide to raise up out of the blinds and shoot it up. We ended up dropping 17 Snows. We totalled out with 17 snows and 8 Canada's that day. This was all in about 2 hours of hunting. It was a blast.

Shootin' a Limit and Getting Some Silver

This was another fun hunt with my good buddy Austin. Austin had a field right next to his house that I scouted b/c he was sleeping or something...lol....neways we got out there early that morning and got setup with our spread of GHG, Dakota, and Hardcore Goose decoys. We ended up going out by ourselves b/c nobody else was able to go that morning and one guy decided to sleep in....he missed out!! We got set-up by sun rise and within 30 minutes the first flock of Canada's was headed right toward our corn field. As soon as they saw our spread they locked up and came in committed. 6 Geese dropped down about 15 yards out in front of us and I gave the command to "DrakeTake Em'!" and 4 geese dropped. The next hour was hard, b/c all we had was big flocks of about 10-15 coming by us and we didn't want to shoot at a flock that big just for 2 geese, so we waited and waited and finally a "Pair of Singles" as I call them came over the trees from the North and locked up and dropped down and they decoyed to about 5 yards when we rose up and knocked them down. As we were high-fiving and talking about picking up dekes, we heard Snow Geese and looked towards the West and they were headed our way and they were low, so we hopped back in the blinds just to try and wait them out to see what they did. Well it turned out to be worth the wait as they decided to land about 25 yards from us and proceeded to walk into our decoys, since it was cold out we didn't wait around to look for collars we just decided to do some conservation, we ended up shooting 7 with our 6 shots. As I went to get the truck and trailer and proceeded to get stuck, my buddy was picking up decoys he picked up some of the Snows also and found one with a leg band on it.

Hunting Solo

Decided to go hunt one morning by myself right across the road from my house in one my fields. I only setup about 20 decoys that consisted of Dakota, GHG, and BigFoots. I was setup in a a chiseled corn field and actually got the blind to blend it pretty good. The morning started off on a great note as a "pair of singles" came off the river and saw my spread and the flag and decided to come visit. After I dropped those two the next 5 or 6 flocks were all big flocks of 12 or more and so I didn't flag or call at them, b/c there was no point in making one more flock of late-season birds decoy wise for just one bird. All I saw were big flocks the rest of the morning so I headed out of the field around 9AM.

Opening Day 2008

After spending the last 32 hours in and out of the hospital with my g/f and having her deliver her baby at 2AM on Saturday morning, I was loading up the trailer at 5AM and headed to the spot to meet my buddies. I had scouted this pond for the last week and it was full of geese and had a few ducks mixed in as well. We had to set-up on the side of the pond that the corn stubble was about 20 yards back from the pond due to the wind being out of the wrong direction. After the morning started off slow about 8:30AM the geese started getting off the the pond at Payless ShoeSource and headed our way. The next hour was filled with alot of calling, flagging, shooting and reloading. When it was all said and done we had 13 Canada's and 3 Mallard Drakes. We ended up 2 geese shy of our 5-man limit, but we wanted to get out of the field and save it for later in the week.