I went goose hunting on Saturday. I had never been goose hunting before. In fact, any desire to hunt had been well camouflaged. Well there I was, now well-camouflaged myself, lurking in the grass at the edge of a cornfield on the Eastern shore of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay awaiting the arrival of a flock of Canada Geese.
It was a beautiful morning, clear and about 45 degrees, quite mild for December and as I lay there staring up at the sky hearing the booming of other hunter's shotguns in the distance, I had time to think. But I chose not to. Instead I just breathed in the cool stillness and waited.
Goose hunting is really more like goose ambushing. First you set up a field of decoys. We had about 75 of them in various poses arranged on the edge of the cornfield. Some were seated some standing with heads down to the ground, others moved slowly in the breeze - moving back and forth on a single leg. They looked quite realistic. There were even decoy full ears of corn. The arrangement left room in the middle for other geese to join them for breakfast.
Some geese flew by at high altitudes not giving our buffet a second look, some came in lower, looked like they might come in and kept on going to the next field. Finally a pair landed in front of us, but we waited because it looked like others would join them. These two were squawking and honking away and my fellow hunters restrained the urge to pop up and fire, waiting for other geese to come on down. Finally, the call went out "Smoke 'Em" All at once four men pop up out of their layout blinds and open fire. Well, three did, I was a bit slow and didn't get my shotgun up and aimed until these two geese had been brought crashing back to earth.
Next time.
After another wait of 30-40 minutes - with various geese flying by and not landing, the sky was filled with the sound of literally dozens of honking geese, they kept getting closer some from the East coming up off the Wye River, some from behind us - flying in from the Eastern Bay, directly overhead there were V formations going in multiple directions then a group of 6-10 came in "Cupped and Coming" wing s cupped to slow for a landing - in formation - an amazing sight. Then again the doors flew open and the booming of 12 gauge shotguns filled the air - and geese hit the ground. Did I hit one? I honestly don't know for sure. But I took one home.
