Last hunt, Family hunt...

The last day of the Washington goose season, where did the season go...All in all I would say it was a pretty successful year. I was home early with limits for my guys most every outing, this sure makes me look like a hero! I didn't take as many groups out as in years past but kept fairly busy the last few months of the season...I imagine the lack of clients had alot to do with the economy but what lacked in guys made up for the amount of geese the Columbia Basin held through out the winter...I averaged 3.69 geese per gun for my dudes...that is pretty sweet!....Now to get onto the hunt on the last day of the season..For the last few years I have had my father son hunt with my boy Jake. The last two years I have invited My buddy Dan from Monroe WA. and his boy jake on our hunt...I met Dan several years ago on there first guided goose hunt, jake at the time was just a little guy, maybe six years old...now he is a teenager with a couple of years of hunting under his belt. He is one heck of a shot for a little guy...They are also the friends that I hunted down at the pond with where we hammered the greenheads...Well back to the hunt, Dan, Jake and Anna, there eight year old daughter along with My Jake and I were set up in the Armpit....It has been pretty good to me this year...but being the last day of the hunt, I knew it would be pretty tough to get the geese in...We neded picking up a few singles during the morning...one honker and a lesser...the lesser, we made sure that Anna and Jake were the first out to retrieve the little guy...This picture will be a classic...
We ended up waiting all day for the honkers to show, they left off the Snake River in the morning and went out the other way...We knew that the geese would come back out in the afternoon, we just had to wait for them to show up....finally at 3:00 we finally had a group finish into the decoys and Jake, Dan and I dumped five big guys....it was the perfect way to finish the day...no limits but good times...joe

"Some old Timers"

I and our duck guide Eddie were set up in one of our pits on a hill above Jeff Rowland and his group of guys, Paul had said there were alot of geese using the farm and we should have a pretty good shoot....Jeff had the field that the geese wanted and I knew it would be just a matter of time that his young guys that he had with him would bang out there four goose limit and we would move over and take there spot...those guys got there birds and we headed over...the geese were pretty leery and when we would get geese working us we would have them just stack up on us...wave after wave of geese would work the decoys and we would get a group to set and land and start feeding as all of the other lessers would circle to work our spread...usually we like to get our geese backwinging into the decoys but the fellas that I had out were a little on the mature side and getting up in time to shoot backwinging geese was out of the question...we would let a smaller flock finish and we would let the rest move on and take our birds without the rush that we are used to...the more times the guys got up, even on smaller groups of backwinging geese the better they got at getting there birds on the ground...by the end of the hunt, the guys were coming out like old Pro's....Here is a pic with there limits, one of the geese is in the back of the truck after it sailed out....joe

Today was some tough hunting,after hammering the honkers on the last four hunts today was a different ball game.. I tried just about every trick that I could think of to get our geese....we would have honkers lock up and circle several times, spin around us just to go back to the river?..Luckily I was hunting with some great guys that are just as funny as they were patient...It helped that they tag along with Refuge self proclaimed "lurker" and fishing guide on the Clearwater river Jim Carter who is on the right side of the pic with the two geese...We hunted what alot of guys like to call "Bell to Bell"...from sun up to end of shooting time...I don't usually post hunts that finish at the end of the day but even with a slower then normal hunt we had a great time...we had enough geese that would commit to Jim, Terry and Marty to get there birds(two geese were hit but flew off after they gained there composure and counted to there bag) to make it a good time...I am sure after the geese get used to the weather change in the next few days..it will be game over again for the geese...until then, I will a take bad day of goose shootin' with good guys over workin' anyday...joe

Hammerin' Honkers with E-Gadget & boys

I had fellow refuge member E-Gadget and his boys out at the farm today for there first field goose hunt, (E took the pic so it is a pic of the boys and one of the other clients)..most everyone has seen there trailer posted on the Washington forum with there Marsh Rats stacked up in racks along with all there decoys, it is a pretty sweet setup that they run....but this was the boys' Christmas present to there dad and the honkers didn't let us down...geese came out slower then usual but they came in in nice small bunches and we didn't let to many get away....joe