Three Bands

It was clear as a bell and freezing cold as my brother and I put the finishing touches on our decoy spread cut brush to build a blind for that morning. The sun was just starting to rise, the wind was right; it was going to be a good day.

The little island my brother and I were hunting was my honey hole. I just knew that the ducks and geese loved to come to the protection of this island to loaf during the day.

As the sun continued to rise our hopes grew just waiting for the first birds to start waking up. Thirty minutes after shooting time and we still had not heard or seen a bird. I convinced myself that since it was a cold morning they were just going to be a little later than normal. I had myself convinced for the next hour, but by eight thirty the skies were completely void of any waterfowl.

Having little feeling left in our toes from sitting still in the cold for so long, my brother and I decided to stand up and stretch out for a minute and eat a snack from the blind bag. One granola bar and a bottle of water apiece and 15 minutes later, nothing. By this time my morale was sinking fast, I was starting to think that there were no birds left in all of South Carolina. (There are not many here to start with so it was not a crazy idea).

At this point in a hunt that is a complete bust, the conversation often turns from when we think the birds might show up, or where they might be to a much more important topic, where should we go for breakfast, and how soon should we leave. My brother and I were in agreement that Waffle House would be the perfect place to commiserate over this cold, long, unproductive hunt. As for the when should we leave, sooner sounded better than later.

About the time we had decided to pick up the decoys I heard a faint distant honk… could it be? Or was my head playing games with me just to make a tough day worse? Nope, there it was again, the distinct in flight talk of a goose.

It has always amazed me how no matter how cold, tired, and hungry you might be if you see or hear birds, all that goes away. The only thing that mattered was getting that bird to come close enough to give us a shot.

My brother and I dove for what was left of our makeshift blind. Frantically we tried to figure out whose gun was whose while calling and flagging at this goose we had yet to see. We could figure out the general direction from which the goose was coming and that it was low on the water, but that was it. After what seemed like a minute or two there they were, a pair of geese 200 yards out on a direct course for our spread. I continued to honk and cluck sparingly just to remind them that there were geese waiting for them.

Inside of 100 yards, my brother and I began to get fidgety trying to get in the best position to shoot at the geese when they come in. 75 yards out, still on the deck, still have not wavered from the decoy spread. I whisper to Thomas that he can call the shot. When they got to 50 yards I went silent on the call and just watched as they finished right into the decoys. 25 yards, the front gooses’ feet were about to touch the water, Thomas said to go ahead and shoot. The actual shooting is always the hardest for me to recollect because it happens so fast. All I remember is I shot at the right goose, Thomas shot at the left goose. They both splashed down, it was perfect.

For most hunts this is where the story ends, we had a slow day that was salvaged by a pair of geese decoying perfectly and us shooting them both.
This is actually where the good part of the story begins for this hunt. You see, as Thomas ran around to the far side of the island to get the boat to go and get the geese I walked out as far as I could and shot my goose one more time to finish it. Thomas’ goose however was already out of range, it seemed that the goose was not dead yet and decided to swim as fast as it could away from us… Well Thomas made it around to my bird and hastily picked it up and tossed it in the boat and took off after the runaway.

I had been watching the direction the goose had taken when it swam away and pointed Thomas to it. That dang bird was fast, by the time that Thomas caught up to it he was 300 yards away (the wind was blowing that direction which aided in the bird’s attempted escape).
I will never forget the game of cat and mouse that ensued, the bird had swam to a bridge and was swimming in and out of the pilings to evade Thomas, who had to resort to tying off the anchor and throwing it at the goose because it is illegal to shoot a fire arm that close to a surface road. From my vantage point 300 yards away, all I could see was Thomas going in fast circles under the bridge and then he would hop up and throw something. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen.
To make it even better, while Thomas was chasing this bird around, a pontoon boat with two fishermen drove under the bridge. Instead of acting nonchalant about what was going on and just letting them go on past, Thomas asked if they had a fishing rod he could borrow to try and hook the goose and bring it in. They said they didn’t have a single rod on the boat and that they were just out for a leisurely morning ride, then took off. That left Thomas with a goose that would not die, and few legal options for killing it.

Finally he devised a plan. Thomas put the anchor down, picked up a section of the Mojo pole and began to just idle around waiting for a chance to strike. Finally the bird was in range, I watched as the final blow was dealt to the toughest goose in the world. Thomas retrieved his prize and turned the boat back toward the island.

I started to walk down to the shore to meet him when I realized that he was going awfully fast
and standing up. I could hear that he was yelling at the same time. It was not until he came to within 100 yards of the island that I realized he was yelling repeatedly, “They’re banded! They’re banded!” I met him at the waters edge to find one banded goose and one double banded goose.

It turns out that the geese had been banded together in 2003 and then the double banded goose had been banded again the following year. Even though they were both residents, they were pretty smart to have survived at least 7 years with out being shot.







Ephesians 1:15-17
For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

Perfect Practice Makes For Perfection

So often you hear the phrase practice makes perfect, well I am sorry to say that it doesn’t… Perfect practice makes for perfection.

In gearing up for this year’s early goose season, my brother and I have been practicing our goose calling. In the world of learning to blow calls, just like in the rest of life, there are plateaus that you can reach. With a goose call, the first plateau may be learning a basic groan/moan, or a cluck. Then with each new noise that you learn you reach a new plateau. My brother and I had reached kind of a tough plateau to move up from; we can honk, cluck, double cluck, and moan/groan (the basic calls for hunting geese). We were proficient. Not champions, but we could fool geese consistently.

So the question then becomes how do you keep from becoming content with just being okay? Listen and learn from the best. This is where the idea of perfect practice makes for perfection comes in; it may sound strange but my brother and I went back to the basics. There is a DVD out that is an absolute must for anyone who ever wants to call geese well. It is called Bad Grammar; the guy that does the video is Scott Threinen, and the guy is unreal nasty on a goose call.

Back to the main point, my brother and I went back to the basics. The DVD goes step by step from how to hold the call, to how to put it up to your mouth, and so on through all of the necessary steps to be a good caller. I was amazed at how many bad habits I had picked up in the past year of hunting. You cannot obtain perfection if you are not practicing perfectly; I want to explain that point a little bit for you. I don’t mean that if a bad sound comes out of your call you are ruined because you are not practicing perfectly. What I am trying to emphasize is that unless you have the fundamentals down perfectly then you’ll never achieve the best of your abilities.

Watching this video was very humbling for me, I thought that I was pretty good with a goose call until I watched it. I had to relearn how to use a goose call, I was embarrassed at first, but now, man I am better than I ever was! That is not to say that I am going to be entering into any contests any time soon… But I sound more like a goose than ever.

If you are gearing up for early goose season, before you get your calls out go online and order Bad Grammar, take the time to watch all 3 hours of it. Listen to what Threinen is saying. Take it step by step, like you’ve never called before, and trust me you will be better!! One big thing that Scott Threinen stresses in this video is once you get the basics down, practice for 15- 20 minutes per day.
Perfect practice makes for perfection

Check out this video of Scott Threinen in one of his competition routines; you will get to see just how sick nasty this guy is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRYnD-JHvy8

Colossians 3:23-24
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Time to start scouting!

Yep that’s right, it’s the first week of August and I have already started scouting! No, I am not looking for spots to hunt ducks yet… I am working on patterning Geese!Here in South Carolina we have a ton of resident geese, and to try and control the population we get the month of September as an early season to hunt the old swamp donkeys. Geese are creatures of habit, so scouting and patterning them is essential for successful hunts.

Geese follow a pretty consistent routine, they have a favorite island or cove that they roost in at night and in the mornings they get up and fly to where ever they feed. In some cases they will fly to another part of the lake they live on and eat in someone’s back yard, or if they are close to farms they will fly out to fields and eat what the farmer left behind.

After feeding up in the mornings they will head back to the lake and normally go back to the same spot that they roost in at night. In the late afternoon geese will head back out to their feeding spot, whether at a different location on a lake or in a nearby field, and come back to roost right at dark.

There are two major factors that can cause geese to deviate from this basic schedule:

The Weather and The Moon

If there is a big weather front coming that is bringing a lot of rain geese will feed for a longer period of time the morning or evening before that weather gets to them. Watch the weather forecast and look especially for the chance of extended amounts of rain.

Side note: check out the new resource that I put on the left side bar, it gives you real time weather anywhere in the world so that you can see what is coming and plan accordingly.

The Moon can really change up a gooses’ routine, on the 1 or 2 days leading up to and the 1 or 2 days after a full moon geese will feed at night. As long as there is sufficient moon light (meaning little to no clouds) geese will spend most of the night feeding and most of the day roosting/loafing.

There are a few things about a gooses life and personality that need to be factored in when planning to hunt them in the early season; most of the time when you see geese in August and September they are going to be in larger groups, these are their family groups, the young birds are still going to be with their parents and or in a larger family group.

If you are scouting a field to hunt take note of whether all the geese come in together or in smaller family groups, this can be helpful with decoy set up. If all of the geese are coming to a field together in a group of 30-50 a large spread of decoys is not a good idea. This group of birds is used to all going in together and not having any competition. If you put out a ton of decoys, they will more than likely hang up short of your spread to scope out these new birds or they will not use the field at all.

A small spread of decoys in this situation would be best, maybe 6-10; this way the Geese that usually use the field will either think that some of the family had already gotten there, or that the group of visitors is small enough in number to be run off.

I know all this sounds like too much thinking about just trying to shoot a couple of honkers, but these resident geese are particular about what they like and don’t like.

When scouting for good spots to hunt geese on lakes and or rivers spend a day fishing, skiing, or just riding out on the main lake and watch the birds. The main lake is a great place to scout from because you can cover a lot of water with little effort. Spending some time on the main part of the lake will allow you to see what islands or coves the geese come from when they get up to feed first thing in the morning. If you spend all day you can get a good idea of what time they leave in the morning, when they come back to loaf in the middle of the day, if they leave again in the afternoon, and what time they come into roost at night. One or two full days on a lake and you can pretty well figure out the when and where of a gooses schedule.

Get a good idea of how many geese are using certain areas, so that you can plan your decoy spread accordingly. Again, just like in fields match your decoy numbers to the birds you are seeing, this time of year it is better to have a smaller spread on the proverbial “X” than it is to have a large spread and not look natural. When hunting geese on lakes and rivers plan a spread that has more decoys on the shore or with in 5 feet of the shore than floating way out off the bank, you are trying to replicate a safe relaxed spread of geese that are enjoying some rest after a big meal.

To close out all I can say is scout as much as you can for geese. Pattern them; keep a log for each group of birds that you find so that you know pretty well where they are going to be and when. If you can figure out their schedule, come early season you will give yourself a greater chance for success.


Galatians 1:10

“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

New weather resource!

I just wanted to take a moment and bring attention to a new resource that I found and have added to the left side bar of my blog. It is an interactive weather map that allows the viewer to see real time weather any where in the world.

I know that weather.com also works, but this page is much more user friendly and gives you more information faster.

I hope you all get a chance to check out the page! I am looking forward to using it to plan out my hunts when season arrives.

Green Tree Hunting Club

I have seen a ton of Arkansas Timber hunts on T.V. and in hunting videos, and the past two years I have had the opportunity to experience a taste of what it is like. During the same trip to Arkansas my last post talked about, my brother and I had the great privilege to be invited to hunt Green Tree Hunting Club. We met up with my dad and Rob, a co-worker of his. Rob is a member of Green Tree Hunting club in Arkansas, and Rob was gracious enough to invite us back to hunt with him at Green Tree.

A little note on Green Tree; it is a duck hunters dream! They have 640 acres of floodable green tree timber (hence the name), two lodges that will sleep10+ people, full kitchen and cooks, a boat house to keep your waders warm over night, and an outstanding manager/guide, Kip. (Kip has placed in the top 20 of the worlds duck calling championship, in Stuttgart Arkansas for the past several years in a row.)

After Thomas and I met up with our dad and Rob, we made the long hike down to Green Tree. The weather was setting up great and our hopes were high. To set the mood for some outstanding hunting there is a huge flooded rice field that you drive past on the dirt road leading to Green Tree, it was loaded with everything. We stopped just to watch all of the ducks; we got to see mallards, pintails, gadwall, widgeon, ring neck, teal. I have a photo we took that will show a portion of the ducks that we saw.

Once we arrived at the lodge we unloaded, met one of the other members and his guests, got a report from Kip on the birds, and ate. Boy did we eat; I had a hard time climbing into my top bunk bed after the meal I was so full…

The first morning was cold (mid 20s for a low) and clear with a little bit of wind (5-10 mph), perfect for a timber hole. There were ten of us hunting together in the “big hole” that morning, five guys were up in the blind and five of us were in the water.

Before shooting light gadwall started buzzing the decoys, it was on like donkey kong! Small groups of mallards started working our spread of 4 dozen mallard decoys and 7 Mojo mallards, and we tried to be picky, every one knew that it was going to be a great day. We would let pairs and singles land in the decoys so that we could pull the bigger groups in. The two dogs we had with us that morning got a serious workout retrieving all of our ducks. My brother (Thomas) and I did not blow our calls very much at first because Kip is a pro and did not need any help.

Side Note: When hunting with more than one or two other people, designate who is going to call and who is not. Too many people trying to call at ducks can cause a push pull effect; one person calls and pulls the ducks closer and another person that is calling a different bunch or is not paying attention can call and push the working birds away from your spread. If you are the one putting together a hunt, do not be afraid to ask people not to use their calls. Most people would rather shoot ducks and not call than call a lot, sound bad and not kill ducks.
Keep your calling simple.

Back to the hunt; since we did not have to call that gave us all the more opportunity to shoot ducks, and did we shoot ducks?!?! The morning was a speeding blur of groups and shooting. Thomas and I did get to call some, while Kip was out trying to retrieve a cripple. It was a great feeling getting to watch the ducks react to each and every sound that we would make. When all was said and done we finished with 32 mallards, it truly was the greatest day of duck hunting I have ever experienced.

I have added a few pictures with this post:

The first is of the field that you pass when driving into Green Tree.


The second is of birds that were getting shot in the hole.


The third is of all the birds hanging on a tree


And the final picture is of all of us with the birds.

Scouting: Part two... When it all goes right

In my last entry I talked about what happens when you try and hunt an area that you have not scouted… Nothing good....

In this post I want to look at a time when scouting an area and really preparing for a hunt paid off. Last December my brother (Thomas) and I made a trip out to Arkansas for the first week of their second season. We drove halfway on Friday and the rest of the way early that Saturday morning. As soon as we got into the area that we were going to be staying we began scouting. Coming from South Carolina, if we saw any birds it was a big deal, but we stayed persistent and drove from spot to spot looking for a solid concentration of ducks.

Major Note: Do not jump, spook or bother ducks you find while scouting, it will mess up your hunt the next day.

Side note # 1: If you live and hunt in an area where there are not a lot of ducks, and plan a freelance hunting trip to a major duck destination, do not get star struck. There will be birds all over. (Just about every flooded field in Arkansas holds some ducks all throughout the season) Take a deep breath, enjoy seeing all of the birds, and then get to work.

Thomas and I scouted several different places the first day that we were in Arkansas. We saw good numbers of birds at all of the spots we checked out, but there was one moist soil unit that was holding substantially more birds than the others. That was where we planned to hunt our first morning.

After a short night of dreaming and hoping that we had found the honey hole to end all honey holes, Thomas and I were up at 2:45 am to make the drive all the way to the spot we were going to hunt, to make sure that we were there at 4:00 am when public land opens up in Arkansas.

Side note # 2: If you are taking a trip out of state and hunting on your own, make sure you know the rules and regs. for that state. Also, if you are taking a trip to hunt, do your scouting, show up early, stay late and hunt hard. It will pay off.

We made the stupid long walk in to the hole we were going to be hunting, made sure to set up where we saw the birds the day before and had enough time before sun rise to take a quick nap on what dry ground we could find.

As we sat in our make-shift blind waiting the last 15 minutes before shooting time, birds began to fly. At first we just heard the wing beats of a few passing ducks, then we got to see a few pass at a distance checking out our spread. As shooting time arrived the sky started to fill with ducks. For the next 2 hours Thomas and I picked and chose our shots on Mallards, Gadwall, Teal, and unfortunately 3 spoon bills. We were done so quickly that it seemed like just a dream.

As soon as we finished out our limits, Thomas and I packed up all of our gear and got out of the hole. We wanted to let those birds have as much time there unbothered as possible. Once we got out of the hole and were a reasonable distance away we sat quietly and watched as tons of gadwall, mallards and teal continued to pour into the hole.

Even though we had found a substantial hold of ducks that we were pretty sure would be back in the morning, we spent our afternoon scouting again. You can never scout too much.

Thomas and I ended spending 4 consecutive days in the same hole and shot 36 ducks. It pays off big time to put a few extra miles on your truck or boat to check every possible place to hunt.

The pictures of the ducks on the tailgate of the pickup truck are from the first two days of our trip to Arkansas.

Matthew 5:1-10

Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Scouting: Imperative to successful hunting

I want to take some time to talk about scouting...

I have two examples from last year that I am going to look at. In this post I am going to look at what happens when you don't put in enough time and don't trust your scouting:

Last year my brother and I began to expand the areas that we were hunting and started looking at new bodies of water that had potential for holding birds. One such body of water was the top of a reservoir. I spent some time on google earth looking at spots that I thought deserved a look in person and after narrowing my selection to just a handful, Thomas and I went out and started putting in some time on the water, in the boat, burning gas. Most of what we found was a bust... a few wood ducks or maybe a place may look ok but was too far away from big water. I can honestly say that we covered the entire body of water top to bottom. It took four trips to the lake and countless hours, but it was worth it.

In all of that time we found maybe a handful of spots that warranted hunting during the upcoming season. I did not have any confidence at all in the spots that we found and consequently I didn't hunt any of them for the first month of season. After our main spots were beginning to get crowded with other hunters I made the decision to try a spot that we had not scouted...

Major mistake. If you have not scouted a spot, do not hunt it! Ducks and geese are very finicky; 50 yards left or right in a spot can mean the difference between a great hunt and watching birds all morning...

On a morning that had great potential (clear sky 22 degrees with a west north west wind) a buddy of mine (Andy) and I headed out to a new spot that I had never hunted... it was a small shoal island that had some low brush on it. The nice thing was that it was central to the main body of water, had lots of shallow water, and was protected from the wind.

We set out 2 dozen divers (all blue bills) on the right side which was the main water side in a line that ran 50 yards, ending in a wad of blue bills and mallards mixed in. On the left side, the protected side, we had 2 dozen goose decoys (a mix of floaters and shells, on land).

Just as shooting time came we heard wings above us, I was thinking this is gonna be it - we are where the birds want to be!!! Once I figured out where the birds were I began to quietly call at them, a small group of mallards, trying to coax them in to our rig. After 3 passes never getting within 75 yards, they headed in to a cove 500 yards away and settled down.

As the morning drug on another pair of mallards did the same dang thing...
something was wrong, so I inspected the spread, out hide, the boat hide, everything.
Unfortunately we did not see another duck the rest of that morning... the only consolation that we got was tricking 4 geese into landing in our decoys. We shot two.

The next week I went back to the same lake. This time I went and set up in the cove that the ducks had been using. Jack pot! We were able to shoot four mallards, which is a great day for South Carolina.

Lesson learned: scout where you are going to hunt and hunt where you scout.

It will pay off...

Phillipians 2:3-4

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.