Clouds, Corn And Canadas
The High Plains Offer Good Canada Goose Shooting -- If You're Willing To Work Through the Distractions To Get To Them
By Dave Carty
When next we visited this country on a two-day hunt, Bill pulled into the far side of a cornfield and began tossing bags of decoys off his trailer, periodically beating his frozen hands against his thighs. We hadn't scouted this field, but it was obvious we didn't have to. From one end to another it was covered with frozen goose poop and the fossil-like tracks of Canadas pressed into the rock-hard mud. Bill decided we'd set up our blinds right here.

"Here?" I said. I stared at the ankle-deep goose poop around my feet.

"Yup."

I've pretty much given up trying to help Bill set out decoys -- I've yet to place them in a way that seems to suit him -- so I resigned myself to chipping out a level place in the frozen poop and erecting our coffin blinds. By the time I got them grassed-in, we could hear the birds stirring on the river, and Bill was rushing about putting the finishing touches on the spread before diving into his truck and racing to hide it in a clump of trees a quarter mile away. Ten minutes later he came shuffling back, chuffing out steam.

And then we waited. It seemed to take a long time for the birds to stop talking and start moving, but when they did, they just kept coming. I yanked on the wing-waver to beat the band, interspersing my calls with Bill's. Flock after flock sailed directly into our decoys, and at one time we had four birds hit the earth almost simultaneously. That was a huge ego boost for me. .
Bill, who, despite his ugly-as-sin 870, is one of the best wingshots I've hunted with, took it all in stride. But I am not one of the best wingshots anybody has ever hunted with, and I wanted to hoop and holler and dance around the decoys.

By 10 a.m. the smoke had cleared, and we had eight geese between us -- the best day, Bill told me, he'd had all season. It was a short-lived euphoria. Across the field, a wire gate was waiting. But right then, all I could think about was tomorrow morning.
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