I went out this past weekend to chase some late season geese in zone 2. Saturday was fun as I took out 2 vets with me and one hadn't shot a goose and had never been on a goose hunt. Saturday was super windy and the geese would circle us a couple times and then go sit in the field to the south of us. I ran out and re adjusted the spread hoping it would help. The wind managed to work the stake out of the top notch of one of my silo's so it started to flop around in the wind. So, I run out again and no sooner to I get that fixed the geese got out of the field to the south and started flying our way (one of the few times I didn't bring my gun to adjust/fix decoys). I laid down on the grass and started calling. I had 4 come over me and then flare while the rest of the geese flew over my guys in the layouts and I turned to tell them to shoot (geese were straight over the top of them) they sail one so I take my dog to the other end of the property to retrieve it. I get back to the layouts and we have 6 work in perfect but we only dropped 3. We each got one with one of the vets getting 2 for the day. we packed up because we were getting soaked happy that we all got geese.
Sunday was my bucket list hunt because I got to hunt honkers in the snow, something I'd never thought I would have the chance to do. I had 2 groups work in for the 30 minutes I was out. I set the decoys out then headed back to sit in the truck because I had about 2 hours to kill. While in the truck it snowed even more. I got back out to the decoys and walked thru them to create trails making it look like the geese were actively feeding and to knock snow off one side of the silos. The first group of 4 worked in flawlessly, feet down and a couple feet off the ground I get up and dropped 3. I hammered the honker call and got the 4th to come back around and got 2 more shots off at him but he kept flying. What was interesting that I have been noticing is that my dog piles the geese in one spot, something that I never trained her to do. A few minutes later a pair work in and I drop my last bird on the second shot. I was packing up by 745 and heading back to the truck. I couldn't be happier with my dog as she sat patiently and steady as the geese would come in feet down. One thing I do need to work on with her is to get her to not break on the shot or when I get up to shoot. This is only her second season and she's already on track to be as good or better than the previous dog I grew up hunting with back in California.
