It was mid-October. The birds had stalled their migration, making them hard to find. To make matters worse, the geese that were still around were horribly gun shy and challenging to pin down in a single field, and even harder to decoy. I had my trailer loaded with my new Avian X full-bodied Canada goose and mallard decoys. They were our secret weapon to finish birds in tight, even if they had been hunted for over a month.

Where’s the luck?
It didn't take long for my friend Mario and I to find birds at our destination—a barley field swarming with a mixed bag of Arctic geese and colourful ducks. But before we could get too excited, the landowner staked the claim for himself.

We quickly located three stubble fields with Canada geese, but the biggest concentration was only 200 birds. We noted the locations but continued to search for something better. If we didn’t pick our spot before the birds went back to the water to roost for the day, we'd be spending the evening spotting instead of hunting.

Finally, after many miles we discovered the mother of all shoots…10,000 geese in a harvested pea field! And…permission denied. Determined to succeed, we headed out again and managed to locate a small concentration of ducks before the birds started to trickle back to water.

Time sensitive: make a decision
Mario and I weighed our options: there were several fields with birds, but no huge concentrations. With the smaller numbers, I wanted to hunt the big Canadas we had seen since they were more likely to come in small groups and provide more opportunity. Plus, there were a few ducks in the mix.

Permission was finally a go, and we headed straight for the field and found the exact spot the geese had been feeding. It wasn't hard to tell why—a couple of swaths hadn't been completely picked up by the combine, leaving full heads of grain intact. It was a very specific location, and we set up the decoys to focus them on the feed lines. Mario collected straw and stuffed it carefully into the straps on the layout blinds. Two hours later, he had meticulously tucked the straw ends down and covered the entire blind. It blended perfectly into the field.

Birds align
We had just settled into our hide when two mallards winged overhead. Mario jumped on the duck call and welcomed the pair to the spread. The winged duo swung around, centred on the decoys and finished right in front of our blinds. When their feet just made contact with the stubble, we sat up and put both in the bag.

No sooner we had picked the birds up when another flight of mallards came from the north. They were anxious to get on the barley and with some excellent calling the birds committed as if we had drawn an “X” where we wanted them to land. The next flight of ducks came less than a minute later and after putting some big greenheads on the ground, we heard the distant music we'd been waiting for—geese!

The geese were coming out perfectly, so our shooting didn't scare the next approaching flock. A single came off my side and I downed it with the proper lead, and as the honkers were starting to stack up, big flocks formed on the horizon before the ones on our doorstep even got within range. A flock of 30 birds circled the field at the same time some smaller flocks worked the decoys. We knew we'd only have one chance and the first birds at the decoys got a two-gun salute.

Our decision to chase the big geese was bang on. They provided more than enough opportunity to fill our limits. Of course, we were a few birds short…it can be difficult to stay calm and shoot straight when the birds worked as well as they did!