The old saying goes that a bad day hunting is better than a good day at the office.
Last weekend I managed to find a hail damaged pea field. The entire crop was a waste, so there are peas galore.
There had to be at least 500 geese and over a thousand mallards feeding in that quarter section, so I got my hunting partner on the phone and told him all about it. He's the guy with all the equipment, so our deal is, I spot them and we shoot them together.
The only problem was that he could not make it on Sunday as he was guiding pheasants at a local club where they use his dog. So that left me with a predicament. Possibly miss the opportunity at a great shoot or miss work.
So, I took a mental health day and we hit the spot at 6am Yesterday (Monday) and it seemed like everything conspired against us.
When we left town that morning, it had been snowing over night but the ground was clear. But out in that area there was a couple of inches on the ground. The field was pure white. To make matters more complicated, the wind was non existent and there was some very heavy fog cover.
We decided to make the most of it and setup as best we could. We used 36 super magnum shell decoys and a robo-duck. The robo-duck's battery was dead... crap, oh well set it up anyway.
The fog was thick all morning, the ducks arrived on schedule and they would pop out of the fog moving at top speed and be gone. It made for some super fast action. The geese for the most part pulled a no show. The weather had kept them on the roost until much later in the day.
We managed to limit out on our ducks with 24 mallards, which was nice but only got 4 geese.
To put this day over the top, I broke my shotgun!
I fired, racked the slide and noticed it felt strange. I took a look and half the fore stock is missing. It had shattered in the cold
The plus side is that we can go back an other day and get those geese since they have not yet been shot at on the field.
While on the way home it struck me, that despite all that stuff going wrong, the cold weather, snow, no geese ,broken gun etc... I realized that I had a fantastic time regardless.
That's why I say that is sure beats work. Anyone else notice that?
Now I got an excuse to buy that new shotgun.
Last weekend I managed to find a hail damaged pea field. The entire crop was a waste, so there are peas galore.
There had to be at least 500 geese and over a thousand mallards feeding in that quarter section, so I got my hunting partner on the phone and told him all about it. He's the guy with all the equipment, so our deal is, I spot them and we shoot them together.
The only problem was that he could not make it on Sunday as he was guiding pheasants at a local club where they use his dog. So that left me with a predicament. Possibly miss the opportunity at a great shoot or miss work.
So, I took a mental health day and we hit the spot at 6am Yesterday (Monday) and it seemed like everything conspired against us.
When we left town that morning, it had been snowing over night but the ground was clear. But out in that area there was a couple of inches on the ground. The field was pure white. To make matters more complicated, the wind was non existent and there was some very heavy fog cover.
We decided to make the most of it and setup as best we could. We used 36 super magnum shell decoys and a robo-duck. The robo-duck's battery was dead... crap, oh well set it up anyway.
The fog was thick all morning, the ducks arrived on schedule and they would pop out of the fog moving at top speed and be gone. It made for some super fast action. The geese for the most part pulled a no show. The weather had kept them on the roost until much later in the day.
We managed to limit out on our ducks with 24 mallards, which was nice but only got 4 geese.
To put this day over the top, I broke my shotgun!
I fired, racked the slide and noticed it felt strange. I took a look and half the fore stock is missing. It had shattered in the cold
The plus side is that we can go back an other day and get those geese since they have not yet been shot at on the field.
While on the way home it struck me, that despite all that stuff going wrong, the cold weather, snow, no geese ,broken gun etc... I realized that I had a fantastic time regardless.
That's why I say that is sure beats work. Anyone else notice that?
Now I got an excuse to buy that new shotgun.
