With the approach of cold weather just before Thanksgiving, I dug the diver decoys outta the shed and Duck Daddy, his son Lucas, and I tried a small lake in Genesee Co. Although the temps where in the 20's and the breeze was stiff out of the SE we saw only a few birds in the air. The highlight of the morning was when a brightly colored Bull Goldeneye swung in tight over the spread, we gave the shot to Lucas and he dropped the bird amid our GHG Oversize Goldeneye decoys. Not an event filled morning but a great day in the marsh with friends.

A few of the same crew hunted a winter wheat field in the same area that evening that the geese had been using the previous day. Again the near 80 degree weather foiled our plans as the geese decided not to dine that evening.

Oct 9th 2010 - Fish Point Tuscola County Mi. I got lucky this year and got drawn for a 2nd day PM reserved hunt at Fish Point, but that's where my luck ended as we drew 28th outta 33 and ended up in one of the not so hot areas.

One and a half days into the Southern Lower Michigan waterfowl season, and you could tell the birds were wary and educated. We picked a zone that my buddy and son had shot nine ducks and a goose out of the previous evening but not many birds worked the area while we hunted it on the 10th. We finished the day with three wood ducks and a mallard by bagging 4 of the 5 ducks we had in range. One of the drake wood ducks I shot had a band adding a bright spot to a rather bleak day.

Water was spotty, with a lot of sheet water and pockets of water in most fields. It'll be a few days before the fields are totally flooded.

Since we were nowhere near a limit, my friend Mark, from the Refuge Gang invited me for an evening hunt in Livingston Co. where he has permission on a few farms that had geese working cut corn the previous few days, the warm 80 degree weather kept the geese down until about the last half hour of shooting time then they seemingly started coming all at once but began dumping into a freshly seeded rye field adjacent to ours, we however did managed to dupe a few small flocks into shooting range and closed Michigan's early season with 4 more geese in the bag.

Overall the Michigan Early Goose Season in our area wasn't too bad, seemingly not as many geese as the previous couple of years but enough to keep it interesting. My friends and I overall rid the State of 52 nuisance geese on 6 hunts in the 15 day season with only one skunk. That's a few pounds of jerky.

Sept 5th 2010 Field Reporter Paul Genesee Co. Mi - Got my buddy Chris, "Daddy Duck." to make a short hunting trip before church services, this Sunday morning, to a field he had permission to hunt that the farmer had just started chopping corn in a few days ago. Geese have been scarce in this part of the county also and we weren't expecting much, about 7:15 am a flock of about 20 birds gave our decoys a look and we dropped 3 from the flock. About a half hour later a small flock of 3 geese locked on to the decoys 2 two thumped the dirt between the rows of corn stubble. These were the only geese we saw that morning, so about 9 am we left so's he could get cleaned up and put on his Sunday duds.

The first day we started by dumping a single that thought our buddy AJ looked like his girl friend and tried to land in the blind with him. Then we took 4 outta a small flock that side swiped our spread and finished with 10 biting the dirt out of a flock of 15 -20. The birds seemingly shut down about 8:30 am and the 80 degree temps had us old guys on the verge of heat stroke just sitting there, so we packed up and went to find some shade and cold beverages.

The second day was hot, humid, calm, foggy, and the geese were later coming to the field. The geese appeared to be having some trouble navigating as the flocks were landing somewhat randomly in the field. As the fog thinned we got a few flocks to zero in on our decoys dropping 6 out of a nice flock of a dozen or so and then totally wiping out a flock of 8 birds. Again the heat drove us from the field as the sun rose and burned the fog away around 9 am.

All in all, 29 geese for two short morning hunts was not too shabby considering the number of birds in the area and the stifling heat.

Mar - 06 - 10 - Field reported Ernie Smith and your webmaster had the privilege of participating in the Fish Point Wildlife Association's 2nd annual Pheasant hunt at Walkiewicz's Pheasant Farm between Deford and Kingston Mi.

The days weather good not have ben better for early March in Michigan, with temps in the 40's, plenty of sun and light winds.

32 association members started the morning with a tower shoot, were over 200 birds were released.

After a break for lunch and to count the morning totals, everyone participated in an afternoon walkup, where the birds who managed to get by the morning tower shoot gave the dogs who waited during the morning shoot finally were let out for some work. For me this is the best part of the hunt, watching great dogs do what they do best.

Can't wait until next year.

Wrong!

Yep! We hunted on the 2nd, it's 9 pm on the 3rd as I write this and my brain has finally thawed out enough for my vision to return.

We set up about 8am and hunted to about 11 am and never saw a bird in the sky.Then we went in to thaw out, ate a large bowl of venison chili, and drank three pots of coffee to warm up. Then about 1:30 pm we went back out to face the elements. Ya see there was over 100 geese in this field the day before and where we set up the snow was all packed down with goose footprints and there were more droppings than in a month old untended litter box.

We had one flock come in about 4 pm, I was snuggled in my layout blind in a light slumber caused by the onset of hypothermia when in a dreamlike state I heard "geese shoot" and was rudely awaken by gun fire. Seems the geese had busted the tree line in stealth mode and took 'em by surprise, they dumped 3 outta a flock of about a dozen. All I got to see was the backside of the flock as they caught a gust of wind and hightailed it outta there. It's tough being an oldtimer like me.

Two other groups of hunters we know that hunted Genesee Co. on the 2nd in fields the geese had been using the prior day had the same experience as we did. Hopefully, when the weather warms a little the geese will get back on a normal schedule.

Jan 01 - 10 - Bay County Mi - Saginaw River - Several of us have spotted these birds hanging around the only open water around, other than the Saginaw Bay. They have been here for over 2 weeks. I have been getting the itch to do a January waterfowl hunt, so this morning I decided to see where this group of geese were going to feed. I arrived at 8:00am and stayed for over an hour and from what I could tell they had no desire to leave. The only thing I can think of is they must be feeding in the middle of the day.

If you look at the pictures you can also see mallards, mergansers, gulls and a few domestic geese.

As I am posting this it is 9 Degrees and the wind is blowing out of the north at 17mph. Maybe it was good they didn't go out and feed.

Dec 05 - 09 - Field Reporter Paul Genesee Co. Mi
Got out with my son Scott for the first time this season. We hunted a small lake from my custom made boat blind ('70's vintage, they were all custom made back then). About a half hour after shooting time a pair of mallards landed 30 yards outside our spread and swam in, we scared 'em up and took the drake. A while later a trio of mallards tried to land on the outside edge of our spread and Scott shot at a drake and dropped that along with a suzie that crossed into his pattern, giving him a two for one shot while I whiffed on the other drake. While his dog Daisy was retrieving the mallards, two canadian geese that were back in a nearby cove were upset with our shooting and decided to leave the lake. As they tried to clear the treeline we hit 'em with a few notes on our calls and they made a hard turn toward our decoys and in a few seconds were feet down over our Big Foot floaters. I dropped the one on my side while Scott still giddy about his two fer shot whiffed on the other. We topped the morning off at about 10 am with a single drake that piled into our decoy pocket like a homeless dude at a free Thanksgiving dinner.

We saw 4 or 5 small flocks of divers mostly bufflehead but they paid little attention to our spread even though we had four of our oversize GHG buffie decoys off to the side which usually brings 'em in on a string..

With the temps in the mid-twenties most of the morning I was glad I wore my polar fleece long johns as everything in the boat was frozen with spray from the dog shaking off including my fingers. If we thaw out by tomorrow we may try it again as it's the last day for Michigan's regular waterfowl season.

Although my shooting was a little rusty it was great to get out again and bust a couple of mallards.

Nov 07 09 - We were out for our first local hunt this year at Fish Point State Game area on the east side of Saginaw Bay, and the weather couldn't have been any better if you wanted to get a tan!

To be honest we have never had any luck at the draws, but today we had some fair luck and drew 12th and managed to get a hunting zone we had taken birds in before.

The hunting in one word was slow.

We hung in there and managed to take two mallards. One nice green head early and we took a nice sequence of pictures of our Labrador Kodi making his retrieve. About four o'clock a hen surprised us coming in from who knows where and a quick snap shot took care of that situation.

At about five o'clock we had three more birds locked up and headed to the decoys until the party in front of us shot and dropped another bird and of course the other three took off and that was the end of a slow day.

It was good to be out hunting again and as always the dog enjoyed the work.

My son 3 Shells hunted water that day in Genesee Co. and saw a few, they had two drop into the decoys and managed to shoot one.

A couple of other friends one hunting Tuscola Co. and one hunting Livingston Co. had about the same luck as we did.

We used basically the same setup as the first day. The ThermaCells went into action today as it warmed earlier in the morning and the skeeters rose from the stubble in clouds to feast on our poor old weary bones. Needless to say they never felt a thing when I swatted 'em after a swig of my tylenol infested blood. It was and enjoyable hunt and another page of memories added to this seasons waterfowling journal.

We hunted over a spread of Avery decoys consisting of 3 dozen FFD Lessers, 1 dozen FFD Honkers, 4 FFD Lookers, and 1.5 dozen Pro Hunters. The decoys were set in small family groups in a roughly C-shaped pattern. We used Lynch Mob, Buck Gardener, and Big River goose calls. We hunted out of FA Eliminator and Top Gun blinds, and also a couple of Cabela's blinds all were heavily grassed with straw which blended well with the stubble in the field. It was a good start to another season.

Feb 1 09 - Field Reporter Paul - Last Day Late Goose Season - Genesee Co Mi. - Had a few geese in the area and Bob called and said he had a few workin' one of his dad's fields. The geese had been flying at midday so we set up at about 9 am but the balmy 40 degree weather threw use a curve and the geese didn't move in our area until after 4 pm. It was a long, cold, windy day in the corn stubble. We saw a couple of singles and doubles throughout the day but nothing was interested in our field. About 3:30 pm Bob made a food run and checked out a few day roosts in the area to see if the birds had moved yet today. With one man short at about 4:30 pm we had a flock of 7 come in as they settled into the pocket beautifully after a few minutes of sweet talk from our calls. We only dropped 4 of the 7 as one of the other guys shotguns jammed after the first shot. Bob watched the whole scene from his truck out on the road. Shortly after he got back to his blind we had a single break off a pair and he dropped it right over the decoys. That was the last bird we got to work our spread. We ended the day with 5 geese for our efforts.

Our spread consisted of a mix of about 7 dozen GHG and Big Foot full body decoys and another dozen of GHG sleeper shells. They were set in a rough U pattern with our blinds upwind at the base of the U. All in all not a bad finish to a long season.