[waterfowlboy]

The best time of the year starts for me on sat. It is the opening day of early goose season for me. Goose hunting is my passion in life. Its the one and only thing that i truely love doing in life.

But the kick in the balls is that it is the same day that my sister gets married. I have thought about not going to the wedding. But my family would disown me. What the heck should i do? It is the first day. I would hate to miss it.

[emerson]

Well, if it were me I would go to the wedding.

There will be goose the next day, but your sister won't be getting married (at least we hope so!)


Good luck,

Emerson

[harbinger_j]

Yep you gotta go to the wedding. :neener:

You have Sunday hunting in PA right? Just go for day 2. You can get out for day 1 of the regular season.

[MrPeter]

Go to the wedding. Instead of going hunting that day, why not celebrate by getting someone new started in the wonderful sport of goose hunting that you love so much?

Like me for instance! I would love to go goose hunting, but I don't know what I need or where to go or really even how to do it! Everyone I've asked for advice tells me to go and ask someone who knows what they're doing for advice. I end up standing still and asking the same person the same question over and over.

Show me your ways and get me hooked like I know I will be, and thereby you will be fulfilled on that most glorious of days.

(PM me if you want to give me some advice. Perhaps take me under your wing? Har! I love puns!)

[MCgunner]

Leaving tomorrow for dove hunting in Waco. Our goose season doesn't start until November. However, I hunt ducks mostly because the hunting is better for 'em on public marshes. Teal opens the 15th here and promises to be good.

We don't get the big Canadas down here, much, a few lessers, but mostly snows/blues and speckle bellies. They're not as big as the big Canadas, but make for some good shootin' over a rag set up in a grain field.

[Smokey Joe]

Waterfowlboy--Hunting is hunting. All else is secondary. However (there is always that darn "however!") family is Family. There will be other opening days. You only have so many sisters.

And, if you make like a good family man, and go to the wedding--and all the other foofaraw appurtaining thereto--you will have something to kid your sister and new brother-in-law about for the rest of their lives: How you gave up an Opening Day to see them Started Off Right.

Enjoy the wedding!

[birddog]

Get up early and get some geese. Get home early and fulfill your family obligations.

I used to be a die-hard September goose hunter, but the sweet corn fields I generally hunted for summer birds have pretty much changed into unfriendly hands. I'm looking forward to returning to my OLD September passion of squirrel hunting this Saturday morning. And, I have to play a gig www.byrdsnestband.com Saturday night, so my hunt will be an early, short one too, but it's better than nuthin!

Joel

[koja48]

As much as I love to hunt . . . I say go to the wedding. Opening Days are special, but I believe this one is trumped by Wedding Day.

[waterfowlboy]

no we dont have sunday hunting in pa. i have to jump just over the boarder into ohio to hunt.

[countertop]

its the resident goose opener here in Virginia too. I won't be out for goose - I'll be out to get myself some squirrel at sunrise. But I plan on getting some goose on Monday. Thing is, I don't know the first thing about "resident" goose.

how do you hunt them . . . I mean, they basically walk up to you. Its not like I have to honk them in.

so wahts the deal, is it really just going out ot find the goose I want and then slaughter it?? AM I missing something?

[Bwana John]

But the kick in the balls is that it is the same day that my sister gets married. I have thought about not going to the wedding
I was faced with the same thing 15 years ago when my wife's brother got married on the opening day of deer season, and I had drawn a very hard to get tag, and I had another tag for my local area.

Now my wifes family is very important to her and they spend a lot of time together, and they are nice folks, but I really dont want to hang out with them all the time.

I moped around untill she said that having me at the wedding would be not be nice for her.

I didnt go to the wedding, I killed a nice 4X4 that day instead. Then I took a rest day, went back out and killed a 5x5 (my biggest to date), it was my most sucsessful deer season ever.:cool:

And ever since then it is understood that I dont do too many family gathering things.

For me it turned out well, my wife gets to spend lots of time with her family without having to worry about me being a pouty baby, and I get to go hunting or fishing or diving when she does the family thing... and hey sombody has to look out after the dog.;)

[birddog]

how do you hunt them . . . I mean, they basically walk up to you. Its not like I have to honk them in.

I'm assuming you're being facetious here. Or not. Or maybe you've never hunted geese...Your comments remind me of the people who say "why are you hunting squirrels? They're so tame they'll eat out of your hands". Umm, no. Not if you're HUNTING. And most hunters don't equate goose hunting with "slaughter". It's a lot of hard work. I've hunted resident geese for years, and unless you're hunting them ON the golf course or from the grandstand of some public park, they're every bit as difficult to call / decoy in as the migratory birds that come along a bit later.

Again, I'm assuming you're not serious. I'm hoping, anyway. To answer your "how to" question:

What we do here is watch where the birds go at sunrise (typically, when the sun is hitting the tops of tall trees, the birds start to fly) and set up (usually a sweet corn or cut cow corn field) several dozen decoys, lay out under a piece of camo netting, and call just as you would during the fall flights; loudly and often.

Make the decoys in a C or a U pattern, allowing a hollow spot for the birds to land. If you're set up right, they will come right at you at the crux of the hollow.

Wait as long as possible to shoot to inflict maximum damage at the closest range possible. Geese are hard to kill and are viscious when wounded.

Grab one of those ones that "walk up to you" one of these days, and you'll see what I mean.

;)

[ChuckNorris15]

i have got a solution bring you shotgun to the wedding

[countertop]

birddog

Thanks. I was being just a bit facetious ;) but not totally in that I didn't really know how to hunt them. We ended up going out early early Monday morning on the potomac river. I usually see lots of geese out there during the summer when kayaking but didn't see a single one. Ended up just doing some fishing.

[waterfowlboy]

The wedding went great! I did get out to the field for 2 hrs and ended up killing six out of the first two flocks. Thanks guys!

[BlindJustice]

In the mid-1960s, the last two dams on the Columbia river in
Wash. State were completed. THe water came up and at one place
along the river a channel had been prepared and on the man made
island was a 9 hole golf course. We would go out on
early Sunday AM Each of us brought along a big brown trash bag.
on hole #6 it was a dogleg to the right At the kink of the dog leg
at certain times of the year 20 or more geese would be sitting there
SO, we would Tee up about 3 or 4 balls each. WHen a couple of geese
went down from hits, We would run up wring their necks
and stuff em in the trash bag and golfing was done for the day.
Then we would go and enjoy goose dinner.

[chemist308]

You have Sunday hunting in PA right? Just go for day 2. You can get out for day 1 of the regular season.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but PA is still closed to Sunday hunting right?