Late, Late, Late Season Honkers

If you're thinking what I was thinking when my roommate asked me to go out to hunt some Canadian geese in February, then the DNR would be on the way.  Wyoming is the hot place to be for the last weekend of late goose season which happens to still be going on in february, and that's where we were headed.  The birds have been pouring into southern Wyoming by the thousands and we were set to head out friday morning.  I have been out west a few times, but am sad to say that this was my first time actually driving out there.  The drive was around 13 hours and my head was glued to the window the whole time looking at all of the wildlife.  If it were up to me, that drive would have taken 20 hours for all the times I wanted to stop and take pictures of the thousands of pheasants and plenty of mule deer and antelope.

We arrived in eastern Wyoming and met Josh's brother, Sam, who goes to school and plays football at the University of Wyoming.  They have hunted the area numerous times and told me that the birds were highly pressured, but there are a lot of them.  Land access in the area is next to impossible so we were planning on setting up on some public land.  After getting about 2 hours of sleep we hit the field around 2 A.M. ready to walk in 25 dozen full bodies.  Roughly 4 hours later, we were all set to knock down some honkers.  All morning long 3-5 groups of coyotes were yipping away all around us, I was so tempted to abandon the decoys and go hunt some dogs.  The weather was a dream, I was so happy for mid-40's and no snow.  Sam drove us down to the river and showed us one section that was covered with birds; I guess for a couple of miles there is pure geese.  The geese then erupted off the river and headed in our direction, that was all it took and we racing to get into our blinds.

 The first set of flocks would come in and then, right outside of range, they would ease out of range and head out.  This was a little different from North Dakota where the majority of the shots were under 5 yards.  Enough was enough and we started to give it to them; one by one geese began to plummet.  It was a complete mess, the wind switched almost right away and the birds locked up directly behind us. We switched the spread and it honestly looked like we shut our eyes and threw the decoys in the field.  They were coming in flock after flock, but still wouldn't commit.  When the fog came in things took a downhill twist...for the birds that is.  It was unbelievable, the geese were so thick you would assume they were snow geese.  You couldn't see them until they were well within shooting range and they locked up, feet down in the kill zone.

The carnage began with flock after flock dropping into our spread.  It was amazing to see dozens of 100 goose flocks giving us a fighting chance.  The geese knew that we had not shot at birds in a couple of months and did not want to fall.  After awhile we started connecting with geese hard and finally reached our 4 man limit around 11:00.  The geese just kept on flying and we could have sat there and shot birds all day long.  After, we drove around looking for some walk-in land to chase those coyotes we heard during the night.  We called a few spots with no responses.  The terrain is absolutely amazing with so many different types of habitat.  This will definitely not be the last trip I will take to Wyoming.  Day two was scratched due to the looming winter storm in the Dakotas.  It was an absolute blast and a big thanks goes out to Frank, Josh, and Sam for making the long haul and giving me the excuse to hunt geese in February.

Comments

[Aaron Hoese]

Looks like you were hunting around Wheatland. I was fishing at Glendo reservoir at the same time, icing big channel cats.

Glad you smoked those geese. I see them al the time and just shake my head, wishing.........