Here are a few "yard hopper" geese that I will be hunting next week.
Mark
It was 69 degrees and Chase the lab seemed bored with the operation but I know once we are hunting, he is ready to GO.
Next Monday I will return in the morning and set out 2 doz big foot goose decoys within 20 yards of the blind.
Hopefully we will have some action as there is a lot of geese in the area.
I might try with the recurve bow this time but I know the compound is dialed in and effective.
Stay tuned for more action from the goose blind.
My best, Pau
This is the first time I noticed them. Lots of geese around last year as there will be this year. Only three days until Monday morning.
Paul
I assume it's when the geese are the ground?
JJB, CSU ie, daughter?
After January, turkey season is only two month away.
What I like about the NAP Shock Force is that they live up to their name. They provide a lot of shock/trauma and bone breaking capability followed up by good cutting design; all that is needed for turkeys and geese to anchor them quickly. Yea, I have seen the "off with their head" BH at work but I still like to body shoot them. Also I like to take a picture of the tom with his head attached without using duck tape to hold it on.
My best, Paul
Keep it coming!
What a treat to have the dog along and doing what he was bred for.
Sort of like the saying, " hunting is what I do, a hunter is who I am." Dog and man alike.
You are Bowsite's GBM... sorry, I couldn't resist! :)
I will wait a few days and try again so stay tuned for more action from the goose field.
My best, Paul
P.S. I can't believe you passed up that banded goose.
(Bet I made you look!) Ha!
Awesome thread! Just curious why you passed on the geese? Can you only take so many?
Not judging just curious.
It sure looks like a lot of fun.
My dog's spent a lot of time in the fall turkey blinds with me, and has carried a couple of longbeards back to hand, plus hens and poults.
He always found big geese pretty easy. Somewhere we have a pick of him jumping into the bed of a pick-up with one in his mouth. :-)
Curious, what's your daily limit out there? We're up to six.
Also, if you know how, can you put dots where you'd aim on some of those birds, please.
2. Nick, I like sharing the hunt as I enjoy other's equally. I am luck to be able to hunt this unique property.
3. Beav. Ok, I know you guys aced a lot of ducks and geese with the bow last year. Similar hunt this year?
4. Loess.... thank you.
5. Sage, The limit on dark geese is 5 per day but there is also a possession limit. Last year I killed 12 and my friend killed two. So I ended up with 14 geese. While we ate them all, it was a few too many so this year I am limiting myself to 6-8. Enjoyed taking a few pictures and trying to upgrade my picture gallery. Trying to get a few landing geese. I had one this morning that came in so fast, no wind, that he crashed and skidded on the ground and then to a stop a few yards away. Sort of like a Carrier jet pilot, landing without wheels and missing the hook.
I treat the shot placement on geese as I would on turkeys. I try to aim up the legs, to the top of the thigh where it connects to the body. If I hit low, I take out the legs. If right on, I hit the gut pocket. and if I hit high, the spine.
I do not take a front on or rear shot on Geese and only try for a broadside shot or slightly qt. away.
Phez, I hope to hunt this Friday and a couple of times next week. It is worth the try if you can find the right place. I am blessed with this unique place to goose hunt. As Writer said, " sure beats setting around and waiting for turkey season this spring". If anything, this goose hunt from the blind is a great warm up for turkey hunting.
Grew up on the Pacific flyway hunting them in our grain fields. Some years back then the sky would literally darken with ducks and geese, clouds of them. When I went to college in Klamath Falls OR I lived in a trailer at Tule Lake CA and hunted early morning before class.
Never occurred to us to ground sluce em with the bow. =D Might have been tough to get on em when you throw the roof/door open and jump up out of the pit blinds though....
How do you cook em? I know some like wild goose, but they have never been my favorite table fare. I ate em because I shot em, but if I could find somebody that wanted them they were theirs. I was admittedly a much poorer cook back then too.
TD. Cook them?
1. I have never cooked a whole wild goose but I have taken a couple to have them smoked when I lived in Ohio and that was good.
2. I only cut out the goose breast
a. made jerky also
b. cut in strips,,dredge in egg/milk, bread in cracker crumbs, and deep fry to medium like "chicken fingers". Another way-----
c. slice thick breast in half or thirds ( depends on thickness of breast) and tenderize with tenderizer hammer. Marinate in orange juice and Russian salad dressing over night, and grill (over charcoal) like liver to med rare. Can also be sliced up to place on salad or served with potatoes, etc.
d, and then if none of the above appeals, place whole goose on board--feathers and all, make large wood fire, place board and bird near to cook, cook to well done, throw away the bird and eat the board. :) This is actually a carp receipt but will do for geese also.
You can improve the flavor by marinating the bird in a brown sugar/salt brine overnight as well, before roasting.
Just a couple ideas ;)
Best of Luck, Jeff
DL, I will now
Weekender, Will be hunting tomorrow so stay tuned in for more action. Chase is at my feet right now wondering why we are not going this morning.
A pic from last year.
My best, Paul
Best of Luck, Jeff
Kyle
I then sprinkle Black Truffle salt I get from the attached link.
Amazing. Although my fare is duck more than geese now.
This is one of my fav threads.
Sage Buffalo's Link
http://solunagardenfarm.com/
BTW She is a pro-hunting person.
writer's Link
Forgive the self-promotion, but for those wanting to find good ways to cook Canadas, I went pretty heavy on waterfowl recipes in the outdoors cookbook we just produced this fall. I'd heard so many people complain about duck and goose.
Anyway, 53 recipes for many species, 150 photos (mostly my faves I've taken in the Kansas outdoors), 110 meat-care tips, several reprints of articles and a lot of narrative of each recipe.
Try the Peace Creek Duck, Tequila Lime Goose and Chimichuri Goose.
Sounds good. have to check it out. Just now getting to where I can put out some real good pheasant a couple different ways.
Paul, I'll get a jump on folks and bring some axis.....
...and Paul, we would all leave such a feast too big to climb into treestands, or scale mountains for elk.
For years my wife and I have done "Beast Feasts," 7-10 course meals that started at about 5 p.m. and end at around midnight. About ever 30-45 minutes a different style of wild game meat is served, with a side salad or veggie.
It's served social style, not a sit-down ordeal, just brought around where people are talking and served on small paper plates.
Incredibly popular. We used to auction our services, to cook game shot by the highest bidders, to raise money for youth hunting programs. I think we hit $5,000 a couple of times.
One of the grilled goose recipes, stuffed with finely chopped veggies, was maybe the most popular.
Weather here in Ft. Collins CO seems pleasant, even at 5 am.
Looks like a good day to kill a goose or two. But when it comes to hunting anything, one never know how it might turn out.
Sometimes muted by the clouds and like this morning, a bright day for sure.
Lots of green grass still in the area so the geese have a lot of food to chose from.
Boy, does Chase love to run out and spook them.
I goose called a few times and they headed my way.
Best way I found to make them is breakfast sausage. You just need a bunch of them:)
Man, was he excited to go!
Well here is the rest of the story.
As I was picking up both arrows, the second one had some blood on it. This is the goose I thought I had missed. I glanced over to the ice covered pond and there stood on the far side, a goose with blood on its side.
Both Chase and I circled around trying to figure how to retrieve this goose. The ice thickness was marginal at best but Chase was able to head for the goose a few yards. The goose ran and took flight and flew over some low trees and out of sight, but I could see it might not go far.
We both circled around the pond and entered an adjacent tall grass field. I worked Chase back and forth into the wind and after a few minutes he became very birdie. He continued to worked back and forth into the wind and found the goose, still alive, 50 yards away.
HERO SHOT of Chase and two geese.
My best, Paul
PS, will give the field a rest and return early next week. Thanks for following along.
Looks like the same applys for bowhunting! Sweeeet!
When I wingtip a pheasant that hits the ground running the command is DEAD BIRD! The dogs love that command, it means they don't have to point the bird and can go right at it, find it, chase it and catch it.
Yep, happy dog indeed!
Ursus... Your daughter will love field hunting for geese. My 12 yr old, Grace killed her first goose last weekend and is ready to get after them again as soon as the schedule allows. She used her 20ga with 3" #2's. Not too much recoil and folded her bird up easily :)
Our family's favorite recipe is to cook two goose breasts in the crockpot on low heat with a dark beer like a Honey Brown or Leinenkugel and a few strips of bacon. After about 8 hours shred the meat and mix liberally with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce. Add a slice or two of pepper jack cheese and you've got yourself a great sandwich!!! Pete
Nothing better than watching the dogs work...
Don't forget, dogs are legal for fall turkey hunting in Kansas and our season goes until Jan. 31. You're going to buy the regular hunting license anyway for spring turkeys so the only extra cost would be the fall permit.
You think Chase enjoys geese, wait until there's a 100 bird scatter or gets to fetch a few turkeys.
Stay turned for the next installment.
Paul
(A knock-off of a dog quote from Gene Hill, sorry.)
By next Tuesday he will be in the goose blind and ready to go again.
Paul
My best, Paul
Man, what a solid, classic-looking Lab. Your vet ever tell you something like, "Hey, this is what they're all supposed to look like, but very few do." ?
Mine a few weeks shy of 13 last January, a last day limit of four roosters. Fetched his 7th and 8th turkeys (both longbeards) of the fall seasons the day before. (More of a drag by that age, though he used to pick them up and carry them, as long as he didn't step on a wing.)
Chase is fortunate to have a pack leader that can devote so much time, though I'm guessing most of our Labs wish elk and deer had never been invented. :-)
Neat thing about a Lab, is no matter what you're doing, as long as they're involved they think it's a helluva an idea!
Interesting story: When Tricia and I owned a tourist lodge on Lake Granby here in Colorado during the 1990s; our lab Jet was a 90#, strong male.
Our guests would comment about his looks and size and state, "we bet he is a great watch dog for the lodge?"
Knowing labs, I would answer jokingly, "OH sure! If we were not home and was broken into, he would help open the door, show the thief where the good stuff was, help them carry in out, and then jump in the car and off he would go".
Yes, they surely do like being with people, sadly, in that case, any people.
Paul
Mark
Paul, I cant tell you how much ive enjoyed your thread. As a goose hunter, bow hunter, lab owner ("junior" is a choco), and a former resident of Ft. Collins and a former student at CSU, watching this thread has brought back lots of memories.
Im sure if I wouldn't have taken a job in Durango and finished my undergrads at Ft. Lewis, I would have probably stayed in Ft. Collins, permanently, and be out there shooting Canadas with you. It was by far the nicest place ive ever lived and I miss it.
I do enjoy bowhunting the geese off my pond here in oklahoma though. :)
Best of luck and keep 'm comin.
Far enough from Denver and close to the Cowboy State and a great feel for the rural area.
Heading out for a few days of duck hunting and then one more day of archer goose when i return next week. I went over to pick up some camo netting at the blind an there were 30 geese in the field this afternoon.
Colder weather coming in on Sunday so maybe the geese will decoy better the next time out.
Chase gives Junior his best.
My best, Paul
