The Fly Way Highway

We don't get a lot of these around these parts. We're kind of on the edge of their fly way. They're usually the first wave of the Northern birds and a couple flocks will come through but not enough to really target them. This is Mike Kuhnert with his first ever snow goose--on the Missouri!

 

Yesterday it went off! The temps hovered around 12 degrees with a wind chill in the negatives. We had thousands of snow geese, tons of Canada geese, a shit-load of swans, (I know, we don't shoot the swans,) and a bunch of ducks. We didn't limit out but we did get three honkers, a couple snows, a shoveler, gadwall, ring neck, and six mallards. We could have gotten more but we let some ring necks go. They kind of taste like crap and our basic rule of thumb out here is the dumber the duck, the more fowl it tastes...Not a bad afternoon though. (See what I did there?)

 

Cutter was awesome as well. He retrieved all the geese and most of the ducks--even the ones that dove on him. The only ones he didn't get were when we shot doubles and triples. He is really coming into his own with this hunting thing. I guess that's what labs do. He's cool to watch in the blind too. You can almost tell where the ducks are by watching his eyes and seeing him get lower and lower as the birds get closer.

 

Today is going to be a real treat. It won't hit double digits and we'll be in a pit with Pete Cardinal trying to shoot our share of honkers and snows. With Pete calling and the spread he puts out, plus the heaters in the pit, it should be pretty damn amazing.

 

Keep 'em where they live...