I ended up not going out this morning as what ever I ate last night had me puking this morning, probably the really greasy onion rings. I did get to sleep in though despite having some really odd dreams. They got 9 more geese this morning. When they got back, we ran errands, and ran out to scout a little. We stopped at Jim Tofer’s to talk with him and Neal had some fish and stuff to drop off to him. Tofer was working to combine his wheat field on the north end of the lake before the rain set in, but apparently it has too much moisture. 18.5 he said, which I’m not sure if that’s a percentage or what. He was headed back to the house as we were leaving out and stopped to have a beer with us. His grandson and daughter-in-law came out to visit as well. The 2 year-old was badly wanting to ride in the combine with his grandpa. From there we headed back to the hotel. We plan on hunting the wheat field again as it still had a large number of geese feeding in it tonight. With any luck, we’ll knock a few more down. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow with winds at 15 gusting to 25 miles an hour. Miserable weather, but great for goose hunting as they tend to go out for more food and fly lower, the strong wind also forces them to land a certain direction. Just like aircraft, they land into the wind since they can stop quicker, or in the goose’s case, not trip and stumble over their own feet. Anyway, I need to get sleep since I wake up at 5 am tomorrow.

We hunted in that wheat field and it was a good hunt. We knocked down 9 geese. Kevin and Randy came out and hunted with us. We ended up setting up a little to close to the edge of the field, but the geese still were coming in. If only our accuracy was good. With 5 people hunting (Kevin opted to just collect our birds and chase down runners), you’d think that when 5 birds come in, none of them would leave. As luck would have it, only two came down, and I think all 5 of us shot at the two as they were pretty shot up. Given four of us have 3 round capacities and Neal has just an over-under shotgun, that gives us 14 rounds flying in the air. By 9am, the birds had stopped flying and we decided to leave the decoys out and hunt it again in the evening when they’d be flying again. We got another 5 in the evening for a total of 14 birds.Packing up, we’ve found we’re now short one full-body decoy. If it’s not in the trailer tomorrow, then there’s a coyote out there that is really disapointed. I also need to strip my shotgun down soon as the action’s jammed twice today. Once when ejecting a spent casing, and once when loading the next shell. It could just be the condition of the old box of shells I was trying to use up today, or it could be all the dirt it’s been in from that one farmer’s field, or maybe I just got wheat in the action when loading shells those two times. Just to be safe though, I should strip it down. It’s frustrating, and a little scary, when you pull the trigger and nothing happens.

Tomorrow we hunt the pea field we hunted Monday, hopefully the birds aren’t too spooked still, but given we hunted the wheat field twice in one day today, the birds don’t seem to spooky yet this season.

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.

It was an early morning but not early enough. We hadn’t moved the truck until half an hour after shooting time and the geese were already in the air. Uncle Bob and Neal had three down by the time we got back to the set-ups. We didn’t bring down any more after that and they were done flying by 10am. It was a good hunt though. In the evening, we went to dinner with Gordy and Allie at Golden Star. We had Gordy order like we did last year and we picked up the tab. The buttermilk shrimp was excellent as always, along with ginger beef, snap peas, lo mien, and a few other dishes that I didn’t catch the name of. I also had a little much to drink but not overly so. Two Caesars and three glasses of wine.

Tomorrow, we get up at four in the morning rather than five.

Well, today was mildly productive. We got a late start due to a dead battery in Neal and Uncle Bob’s rental car. They tried to get it exchanged at the airport here, but Budget Rental Cars are independent of one another, so they drove one out from Edmonton for them. Quite nice of them.The late start seemed not to affect much as there were very few geese flying or in the fields. Seems that geese rest on the Sabbath or something. Given the numbers seen yesterday, most may have still been full. By evening, we were seeing far more. There were at least four fields with easily two-hundred birds a pieces. We have permission for two of them and will check about the others tomorrow. It should be a good hunt.

After this morning’s scouting, we went to Gordy’s — having failed to find a cafe for breakfast as the one in Bezanson abd Debolt are out of business — once there, we off-loaded the trailer. We put the full-bodies together, got our stuff that Gordy stored for us, and then packed the trailer again. I still think the trailer needs shelves and other organization. It should open more space.

We also got permission for Tofer’s place. It had geese landing in the volunteer canola just the other side of the trees from the lake. Apparently other stuff is growing in it. It’s looking good and I’m excited for tomorrow. We have our licenses and our field lined up, and tomorrow we take Gordy and Allie out to Dinner at Golden Star. 7pm.