I woke up tired and groggy and headed out into the cold, 30 degree weather and we put out our decoys and blinds. The wind was moderate at probably eight knots. We actually got set up in time today. We got twelve geese and three mallards all told. We also had a duck and two geese get away from us. There were three wounded and running. In thirty pounds of gear, and shotgun in hand, I was in full sprint for the first one and took him down after chasing him a good 150 yards. The other one I chased for about twenty minutes, sprinting and jogging in this section field (section as in a square mile parcel of land). It was freshly disced and was like running in sand. I never got closer than 80 yards on this goose and he eventually slipped through a wire fence and into the woods. I couldn’t clear the fence or find away around it in any direction on this mile long fence line, so I let him go. Uncle Bob’s got away too. The same thing happened with a mallard. It out ran me and went under the fence. All-in-all, it was a good hunt until we started to leave and check for those wounded birds. The farmer was chasing one on a four-wheeler and had picked it up by the time we got over to him. He was a little pissed we had the wounded goose get away from us and threatened us with his .22 rifle, saying, “See this?” pointing to the rifle, “Don’t ever come back.” The whole time, he was holding this live goose and petting and stroking it like some new pet. We found out later that the old man is losing it in his old age and can be rather erratic and is known for it, which makes the whole thing a little scarrier. Later, we got in touch with Kevin Ophus over at his business. He invented a way to process tar sands to get oil that is 98 percent efficient, meaning they can dump the sand back on the ground when they’ve got the oil out. He currently operates a large field in Utah despite being in Canada. We all headed to Randy’s business, Grande Equipment, to see what fields he knew of and got us lined up with a farmer, named Darren, who has a combined wheat field. There were about 100 geese in the northeast corner of the quarter section of land. He owns 9 sections. We expect we’ll hunt it tomorrow. After Randy showed us around, we went back to his store for drinks. I had three short glasses of Candian whiskey and Sprite while we shot the breeze for several hours. The six of us; Dad, Uncle Bob, Neal, Kevin, Randy, and I; finished off that liter of rye whiskey before heading home. Well, the hotel room anyway. They might come hunt with us in the morning. At least we’re not hunting in Debolt, so we can sleep in half an hour. Wake up is at 4:45.