My truck was jammed full of goose decoys. I could hardly get the tall truck shell door shut on the bulging load.
Fog greeted me early in the morning as I turned down the highway towards Wayne's house. Fog! Certainly not our friend in goose fields.
I met up with the small army of guys sharing this days goose hunt in Wayne's snow covered driveway.
Matt had flown in from Alaska late last night, Mick, a local teacher and long time hunting friend, Larell, who had camped overnight on the farm with his 9 year old nephew, also a long time hunting friend.
"The fog is only down here on the farm," I informed the boys as we gathered around a horse trailer filled with the other half of our goose spread, "once you get across the railroad tracks it is non-existent."
"That figures, welcome to Wayne's fog bank farm," Wayne quipped, "It is always foggy down here when you don't want it to be."
We rumbled the big trucks and the UTV along the river into the corn field near the blind.
"Let's set two bunches of decoys," Wayne said with a puff of breath steam hanging in the light of his head lamp. "Just unload your truck in one bunch and the horse trailer will make the other bunch."
I could feel the excitement in the guys, for most of them this was their first goose hunt of the year.
Decoys vanished out of the trailer and truck and into the field transforming a corn field into a goose sanctuary.
"Wow, that looks great," I commented to one of the headlamps passing by in a cloud of fog and breath steam. It was so cold and foggy you could hardly tell who was around you in the dark.
We pulled the rigs out of the field and hid them under trees at the river, then met back at the blind in eager anticipation of a great goose shoot.
Chairs were deployed in the blind and thermoses of hot coffee could be heard opening as a quick warm up before the action started.
Then the wait began.
We waited, and waited, and waited...
"This fog is supposed to clear around eleven o'clock today," I told the guys, "That is according to the national weather station report."
What the National Weather station does not take into account is the fog making machine of Wayne's farm.
Eleven rolled around, still pea soup fog. Noon crept onto our watches, and into our growling bellies.
"Ok boys," Wayne said, "Let's head to the house for lunch and see if this fog will clear in the afternoon."
Mick said he had to run home to feed horses and took off for his truck.
We chowed down on some great hot pizza Wayne's wife and daughter cooked up for us, staring out the windows at FOG.
We watched a little bit of the Rose Bowl game on TV as we ate. With the last bite we piled our heavy coveralls back on and headed back out into the cold fog.
Mick met us back at the blind.
"There is no fog past the train tracks," he informed us. "the only fog around the valley is sitting here on Wayne's farm."
As the afternoon wore on, we could hear other groups of hunters calling and shooting at birds just outside of the heavy fog of the "farm".
Boom, boom, boom! the shooting continued most of the afternoon and into the evening.
"One hour of shooting time left," I informed the guys. Still no geese flying over the farm.
With only a few minutes of shooting time left a big roar of geese came up the river and landed on the ice around the edge of the farm, but giving us no time to go after them.
We picked up decoys in the darkness of the evening, still in thick fog.
"I guess you just can't beat the fog of Wayne's farm!" someone commented, stuffing armloads of decoys into the truck.
We met in the farm yard for our goodby's.
We all agreed that we had been blessed with a great day of hunting. Not a shot was fired at a goose, but the thrill of hunting stories from the days past was more than enough to make the hunt of today a grand success.
We laughed, we solved national political problems, we talked of some of our group who have gone on to God's best hunting grounds above.
We may have been fogged out on our hunt, but with this group of wonderful men, a hunt is never a lost day.
"We'll get 'em next time," was the parting words shouted out windows as the trucks left for home.
