The time tested adage of making chicken salad out of chicken s**t is appropriate for yesterday's hunt. Cloudy, snow flurries and the beloved east wind all combined to make our prospects for a successful hunt seem quite dim. However the snow flurries were light and scattered. The east wind was just a whisper and low and behold we experienced one of the unique phenomenas of spring snow goose migration. A reverse migration! We had birds coming from the north going back south all afternoon. I think they ran into the snow line and frozen lakes in northern NE and southern SD and decided they need to head back to Squaw Creek and wait awhile.
The good news is we now get three chances at them. One, on their first trip north; two, on their way back south; and three, on their way north again. At 2:30 yesterday we had 10 birds. We finished with 28. The last volley was with fire belching out of the barrels in the near darkness. Our three groups bagged a total of 60 birds yesterday.
Not bad for a chicken s**t day!
I have to give a shout of high praise to my yellow lab, AZ. Those of you who have hunted with her know that she is not blessed with blinding ground speed. A running back she is not. A bit more like an offensive lineman. What she does have is the sweetest personality that any retriever could have. I used the term retriever because that is what she is. A world class retriever. She is steady to shot. She will never leave until I give her the command to go. She is like a rock even when 1500 screaming white banshees are spiraling like an F4 tornado above her head. She unfailingly marks up to seven birds. She takes hand signals and whistle commands that allow us to put the 500 yard sailers that fell in the corn field into the bag. I am blessed to have such a hunting partner.
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