Welcome Back

By John Francis Sunkler
December 3, 2009

This hunt was two years in the making. My cousin, Brian Johnson, mentioned to me that he was interested in getting back into goose and duck hunting two years ago, but with his job and family constraints and my college schedule, we did not get to hunt together last season. So on night before opening day of the Delaware goose season my hunting partner scouted a soybean field that was being heavily used by about 600 honkers.

Brian was the first man to be called about the next morning hunt and he was extremely excited. The next morning we set up 10 dozen Green-Head Gear FFD Lessers and Full Body decoys and made the extra effort to dig our Power Hunters in, so that we would be completely invisible.

The first two hours of shooting time were spent sitting and watching countless flocks of snow geese fly over the spread. My hunting partner, Kyle Hitchens, told us that the Canada's in the area were sleeping in and flying late. As soon as he said that we saw our first flock of Canadians. With the mellow honks and moans from my birds eye maple SR-1 and the quick clucks and spits from Kyle's Money Maker the first flock slid into the decoys. Five men pop up and 4 birds are dropped in the first toll of the year. With a slight decoy change the next two tolls of birds dropped right in on top of our Power Hunters. We needed one more bird to finish the limit, so I told Brian he would be single man on the last goose. Shortly after Kyle and myself worked a group right into the decoys, Brian sits up and BANG, BANG, BANG hitting the same goose three times, but the bird continues to fly away with the flock. After ribbing Brian about his accuracy. We watch the goose drop out of flock and fall into the lower part of the field. We later picked up the bird after we picked up the spread.

With a five man limit, Brian looks over at my and says "My wife is going to kill me because after what I saw today, I am more addicted to goose hunting than I have ever been." This hunt to me was much more than getting our limit, but is was getting to hunt with guys I rarely see during the year and reintroduce a great guy to the addictive sport of waterfowling. Welcome back Brian!