Left Dallas Friday afternoon and headed to Lubbock for a weekend of hunting with Greg (GP08). Saturday we headed out for the phesant opener.
Greg waiting on LST. 22 degrees!
The sun beginning to peek thru the West Texas night sky.
We hunted hard all day and but didn't see many roosters. Probably walked 10 miles combined on 4 tracts of land. I think total we saw around 10 birds. Only 3 of them were roosters and I missed my only opportunity to kill one
To make it worse Greg missed his only decent opportunity to take one down. It was all I coulda ask for. My legs hurt like hell but it was worth it just for the chance to shoot that one bird. I did manage to whack these guys while walking:
In bewteen phesant hunting we scouted out where we would be goose/crane hunting Sunday morning. Geese and cranes litterd the sky by the hundreds. With no layout blinds we decided that we would hunt behind two big water containers on the edge of a cornfield. We were so tired Saturday night that we only saw the first quarter of the UT/Nebrask game. Alseep by 9:30.
Got up Sunday morning and got off to a rough start when I accidently snapped the head off of one of Greg's brand new (just got the box in the mail yesterday) goose decoys.
Got set up with the remaining goose dekes, a dozen crane dekes and 6 full body mallards. Part of the spread:
About 7:30 the sky filled up with thousands upon thousands of geese and cranes. We had some great passing shots at a few groups of canadas and cranes, but these birds were big and tough. Feathers would fly and the birds would fly on. BB's had no effect on them
Eventually a two Canadas decoyed in and we each blasted one of them (my first ever)
Next a group of 3 cranes came in and had their feet down. Six shots later we watched in amazement as all three flew off
We then had one lesser Canada get a little too close and we folded him. I began taking some pics when 2 more cranes came in and Greg let them have it- but they too flew off
This is what the sky looked like four about 4 hours straight.
Group after group of Canadas. Next year we will have layout blinds and I am going to be getting a goose call for Christmas!
Around 11 we packed it up and decided to walk one last field in search of that ellusive rooster. We saw two more hens and that was it. Greg did smack these two jacks. One of them made the exact sound that my buddies predator call makes
Our geese- the big boy in the middle weighed in at just over 10 lbs!
I had a great time on my first ever phesant/goose/crane hunts. Thanks to Greg for putting me up and taking me hunting this weekend. I met Greg 3 years ago while shopping at Academy. We were both looking at GWT decoys. It was an unlikely friendship that evolved him being a senior in high school and me a senior in college. Thanks for everything bud. Looking foward to hunting with ya over Christmas break.