Jewelry Store Hunt

by Adam Strong
Zink Calls Pro-Staff
January 8, 2009

On the afternoon of Sunday, December 8th, 2008 we had no idea what kind of miracle hunt we were about to experience. At about 12:00 P.M. my good Friend Casey Laure met me at my home in Ft. Collins, CO. and we headed to the field. We met up with my other buddy Kyle at the field and set up 5 dozen GHG FFD Fullbodies and our Finisher blinds in the hay field. We settled in for a nice hour long nap and were awoke by the sounds of geese coming over the near by houses.

After throwing dirt clods at Casey and Kyle to wake them up, I got on the call and the first flock came straight in! they were at a goofy angle so i let them land so Casey and Kyle could get out of their blinds and shoot. Right as they were landing i spoted something and sat up. Bang, Bang, Bang, three geese hit the ground casey dropped one other.

When my dog Drake brought the first bird back, it had a leg band just as I thought! The other three all had jewelry as well! Great start! About 15 minutes after that we had a flock of 7 come. They got to about 30 yards and we noticed two neck collars in the group. Casey was about to explode out of his blind and I said, "let em' land!" so they came all the way into the hole about 10 feet from us and touched down. We started scanning legs and out of the seven birds, two others were banded so we sat up and burned the two collars and the two bands.

Drake made quick work of the birds and his first two retrieves on collared birds. After that the wait began. It got very slow until 4:15 and we had more birds coming. The first group of 20 birds was working in when another 50 joined them and another 30 or 40 joined them! Soon we had over 100 birds circling and getting close. They made one wide swing and centered up, perfect! They were coming hard wiffling the whole way.

I reminded Drake to be steady, "Stay" and he was very steady for an 8 month old Cheasapeake Bay Retriever. 40, 30, 20 yards and closing, all I could think was this is way too many birds for three guys to shoot into! Once the front of the flock began to back peddle at 10 yards i glanced to the side and here comes two neck collars and I mean COMING! I was about to tell Kyle and Casey we had some collars coming and all I hear is BANG! So I sat up and burned the two collars. I looked back at Kyle and Casey and asked, "What did you shoot at?" Casey started yelling, "I got a neck collar! I got a neck collar!"

I informed him that I shot them both off my end and Casey said no I killed one on my first shot. The Drake stuffs a goose in my blind and it has a collar, I look to my left and my two are still laying were they fell? I told casey we killed 3 collars out of that volley and sure enough drake brought them back and 3 collars! Kyle shot another goose out of the same flock but it was bald. We picked up the Decoys and realized we left our cameras at home so we drove to my house to take the pictures. This Hunt was absolutely amazing and I am sure I will never have another as truly lucky as this again.