Team DrakeTakers: August 2009

Sunday, August 23, 2009

NoDak Early Goose Season - Day 1

"Hero Shot" from Morning Hunt - Myself, Kyle (Rick Hahne Calls), Tyler (Tribal Outdoors), Josh (Rick Hahne Calls). Picture by Team DrakeTaker Pro-staffer Jason Tarwater

Lockin' Up the Trailer

Myself, Pro-staffer Jason Tarwater, two pro-staffers from Rick Hahne Calls (Josh and Kyle) and Tyler from Tribal Outdoors all decided to head to North Dakota for the Early Canada Goose Season that started on August 15th. The reason they have this season so early is because the resident geese up there are eating rows and rows of crops around their roosting areas. After seeing the damage first hand I truly realize how much of a problem it really was. We made the 10 hour drive up there and stopped by the Dakota Decoy Shop on the way thru to meet Bill and Dinger and the boys. We scouted all day long Friday to find the perfect field. We found a fresh cut Barley field just North of the town we were staying in that we decided would be the field for day 1. We got up at 3AM and headed to the field only to see another truck and trailer already in the field, no worries as we had a"Plan B" field and headed to it. Our "Plan B" field was a chiseled corn field that the geese were using, the only problem was that it had rained overnight and we couldn't pull out into the field with the trailer and we only had 6 decoy bags so we carried 3 dozen out in bags and then another dozen by hand and our blinds and got all setup and ready to hunt. The birds didn't work like we wanted them to, mainly because of so many "live geese" sitting around us on water. We did have a bunch of ducks working our spread and landing in the decoys to keep us entertained. We ended up shooting 13 that morning before packing up around 9:30.

Myself, Josh, Kyle and Tyler - Picture by Jason Tarwater

Dakota Decoy X-treme Honkers

Myself, Kyle and Tyler with our Eyes to the Sky

That afternoon we headed up to the "Plan A" cut barley field that we were beat to that morning. When we pulled into the field it was about 85 degrees out and then a huge storm rolled in and poured on us for about 30 minutes and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees and as soon as the rain was over the temp went up into the 90's. It was some of the wackiest weather I've hunted in. We only needed 12 geese to fill our 5-man daily limit of 25. We shot a single as he flew over the spread and so now we just needed 11. Jason spotted a flock to the South about 2 miles away and Josh and I started flagging and the flocked turned. As they got closer we started calling and they were acting like they wanted in, but as they got to about 40 yards they were still too high and it seemed like they were gonna go right past us. All of a sudden they just started dropping straight down and into the decoys. As the flock of about 40 was dropping into the decoys we raised up out of the blinds and started shooting. Birds were falling everywhere and as Josh nailed one trying to get out the side of the spread, I started yelling for us to get a count before anyone shot anymore geese. Good thing I did to, b/c we dropped exactly 11 geese out of the flock and gave us our 25 bird daily limit. Watching that flock of 40 drop straight down on top of us was an amazing site to see.

NoDak Early Goose Season - Day 2

Kyle (Rick Hahne Calls), Josh (Rick Hahne Calls), Myself, Jason (Team DrakeTakers)

Myself, Josh (Rick Hahne Calls), Kyle (Rick Hahne Calls), Tyler (Tribal Outdoors) Picture by Team DT Pro-Staffer Jason Tarwater

The DrakeTaker

Pro-Staffer Jason Tarwater

Now You See Us!

Now You Don't!!!

On day 2 we hunted in the morning on a cut wheat field we had scouted two days before and had geese in it, the night before it didn't have any geese in it, but we figured since we got to scouting so late and the amount of birds around us that we would be ok. We got setup and we could hear tons of birds to the North of us on a huge watershed. The wind was howling out of the North around 35-40MPH and we figured the birds would get up and not wanting to fight the wind would just sail right to our field to the South, well they didn't and we ended up with just 2 birds for the morning. We did have a ton of ducks working our spread and landing in the decoys all morning long so we weren't bored my any means and I now have a new favorite quote from the fields thanks to Josh, "Just eat the pop-tarts already!" You had to be there to understand it. Anyways after picking up for the morning we spotted the field that all the geese were going to and got permission to hunt it. Now in North Dakota if a field isn't posted you don't have to get permission to hunt it, but we still felt like doing things the right way and getting permission. That afternoon we got out to the barley field that was cut and put into windrows. We set out 6 dozen X-treme Honkers and put the blinds in the windrows and got ready to hunt. The birds were wanting into our field, but our only problem was the wind kept pushing them off to one side of the decoys. We still ending up shooting our 23 to finish off our daily limit in about an hour and a half.

NoDak Early Goose Season - Day 3

Myself, Kyle (Rick Hahne Calls), Josh (Rick Hahne Calls) and Tyler (Tribal Outdoors) Picture by Team DrakeTaker Pro-Staffer Jason Tarwater

On this morning we headed back to the same cut barley field we had hunted the previous evening. With the great success and amount of birds in the area that hadn't even got up off the roosting areas the night before we figured we would have good success. We setup a little bit further back in the field this time, but used pretty much the same decoy and blind setup as the day before. As the sun rose up out of the sky so did the birds and right off the bat we had geese in the decoys folks. This hunt was filled with geese in the decoys, guns going off and a lot of reloading. Within an hour we had our 25 geese for the day and a lot of great memories to go with them.