That unique title has nothing to do with the elections that are going on today, or does it? A neighbor has told me that geese are flying south for the winter, and that she has seen several flights go over. Being the nice neighbor I am and not knowing if she could tell the difference between a flight of geese and a flight of Cranes, I replied, well it is that time of year.
Back in the olden days, when I was young and somewhat sillier than I am now, I was known to go goose hunting. My nephew Mike (he was a couple years younger than me) and I would brave the cold weather and hunt those geese. Mike had gotten permission from a farmer (at least I think we had permission) for us to hunt on the edge of one of his fields. This field was old river bottoms, the field was perfectly flat and was possibly four to five hundred acres. The East side of the field was the bank of the Mississippi river. We hunted on the west side of the field.
I would get up about 3:00am and get everything together and drive to Mike’s house. We would then load all his things along with mine into his vehicle and drive through a couple country roads and then off the road onto a dirt road. We would then park his vehicle get everything we needed for the day and pack it all back over the hill down the other side through some woods where we would come to a ditch. This ditch had water in it and it was too large to jump over, although we could toss much of our supplies over the ditch.
At this point we would put our rubber boots on and wade across the ditch. It was only a hundred yards or so to where we would hunt from.
What did we take with us? Understand that the temperatures were in the 20s. We dressed accordingly. We carried a tarp, the tarp was placed on the ground, we carried blankets, a gas heater (it was one of those that you could light and it would just glow as it put off heat), rubber boots, some goose decoys (that we had made), food (we would stay there all day), and shot guns.
Goose hunters often hunt from a pit, especially if they are out in the open. We hunted from a brush pile. Actually it was a fallen tree and we were able to camouflage ourselves. We sat there on the ground, covered with our blankets and the heater was between us.
The Mississippi river is a fly way for both geese and ducks. There were wildlife refuges north of where we hunted at Wolf Lake, and south around Horse Shoe lake.
We would get the decoys set out and get ourselves into the so-called blind, and wait. We would see flights of geese going mostly south, although there would be flights going north. Occasionally a flight would come over our blind.
One day we were sitting in the blind and one of us noticed something unusual. It was coming from the south going north. It looked like the swarms of locusts that I have seen on TV. There were literally thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of geese flying from the south going to Wolf Lake reserve. We watched in amazement, as this enormous flight of geese which must have been a mile long, flew up the river. It was even a little scary. The geese were flying high, as they got over the Wolf Lake Reserve they would begin to circle and they dropped down into the reserve. We assumed they knew there were hunters around the reserve and they were smart enough not to get close to them.
I tell you all that so that you would know that I can tell the difference between geese and large Cranes flying over. I have photos of the cranes flying over our house yesterday.
The cranes fly in a V formation like geese, and there is an occasional noise made by one of the cranes. Geese fly in a V, but they look different and they usually make a lot of noise as they fly.
The last time I was in Missouri I drove by our old house, and one of the geese decoys that I had made probably 50 years ago is still leaning against the shed.
I need to get to work, my present spouse has a project for me. I am making a shelf to attach to a shelf she already has. I hope I can do it.
Look up and see the…
Senior decoy maker; Don Ford
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