Some of the boys helped me set up for opening day and it appeared like it was going to be a good one as we shot 5 snows while setting out the decoys the night before. We were legal to shoot snows just could not use unplugged guns or electronic calls. That made the next day our official opening day.
Larell, Terry, Luke, and myself packed batteries, sound systems, and decoys from pitch black to the brightening of the morning skies. We were still racing around with last minute set up when legal shooting time sprang upon us.
"Hey guys, get some shells in your guns," I said while connecting battery terminals to the vortex machines. "Any bird in now can be shot at."
I crouched in a tulie (cattail) patch near the blind with my new hunting puppy, Halibut (Hali). I had been working for a month in Alaska trying to get her comfortable with gun shots, but she was still a little too nervous for me to stand in the blind and start banging away over her head. I wanted the first day to be a break in for the pup.
"Peep." The morning stillness was broken by a single peep of a snow goose.
"Single! Coming right in," I whispered to the guys in the blind. "Get this one."
I watched holding Hali as the grey colored goose dropped down to just above the decoys and swooped right over the blind..
Not a shot.
What the...?
"You guys need to shoot the goose," I said above a whisper with a little frustration in my voice.
"It's a speckelbelly," one of the guys whispered from the blind.
"No, it can't be. It is peeping like a snow goose," I whispered back, "Its coming around again. Shoot it!"
The little goose once again swooped right over the blind and not a shot fired. I really wanted it to happen as Hali was glued to the bird peeping and soaring right above us.
The little goose made a circle out past the pond and dropped right into the decoys just a stone's toss away from myself and Hali. Hali was glued to the bird. I did not move as we were right in the open to the goose now.
"Someone bring a gun over here and shoot this goose," I whispered in desperation as loud as I could without spooking the now very wary bird.
It wasn't long until I heard shuffling in the tulie patch behind me. Luke came sneaking to me with his gun.
"Are you going to shoot that goose?" I asked, still holding Hali tightly.
"It is a speck. Can't shoot those now," He replied.
Larell came sneaking through the tulies as well. With him was his trusty pair of binoculars. He handed them to me.
I cranked the focus on the goose. It sure did look somewhat like a speckelbelly goose. But... it totally peeped like a snow goose.
"Ok, I see what you guys mean. It does look a lot like a speck," I whispered to Larell, handing back his binoculars. "Maybe it is a cross?" Meaning one parent a snow goose one parent a speckelbelly. We had never heard of such a thing, but in nature you just never know,
Luke and Larell crawled back into the blind and it was not long before a flock of snow geese dropped out of the brightening sky and into the decoy spread. I held Hali tight and was happy to see the doors drop open and guns come out blazing. The boys even managed to shoot a goose for Hali.
I was a little dismayed to see the grey goose jump out of the decoys and fly right past the blind as the boys blasted away at the snows.
Hali was not sure of the bird on the ground. She sniffed it and nibbled at the wing feathers but would not try to pick it up. That would come in the next few days.
We had a good snow goose shoot the rest of the day, but that first bird still bothered all of us.
I was in bed later that night when my phone chirped that a text had come in. I rolled over to see Larell's name.
It was a picture of the little goose that had landed in the decoys... I mean it looked like the very bird.
"This is a juvenile blue goose," Larell texted to me. "I think we passed up the only juvy blue goose in the history of Idaho!"
A blue goose is classified in the snow goose family and is legal to shoot during any snow goose season.
I laughed to myself as I forwarded the text to Luke. I knew he would get a kick out of that as well, as he has the only mounted blue goose from our group hanging on his wall.
"At least I was not loosing my mind hearing a snow goose sound out of that goose," I texted back to the guys, "I told you to shoot!"
I was just ribbing them. I'm thankful to hunt with a group of guys who would rather pass up the first shot of the season to stay within the law then to jump quickly at a maybe situation.
The season was officially under way. I would hunt for the next 17 days straight and the little brown dog would amaze all of us with her quick learnning skills.
the juvy blue goose
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