one year to the day....

[iawaterfowler88]

Well Derek (iowamigr8tor), Al (kingkilla) and I decided to hunt a traffic field between the birds roost ponds and their feeding areas on the 26th. With the temps lately being in the 40's and 50's the birds have rarely fed twice a day and this proved itself to us again with us not seeing a whole lot of birds in the morning despite temps in the 20's in the AM. We left at 10 am to return to the spread at 2 pm. We got there, joked around, talked, and just kept watching. About 4pm Al looks up (3 of them are standing talking) and goes "wait, theres a goose" so I reach for my call thinking he’s flying around and he says "no don't, he's on the ground over there." Sure enough there he is about 80 yards away, he had snuck in on us. So they got into their finishers and get down and see what happens. He gets up, cuts the corner of the decoys and comes right at me as I cluck and moan at him a bit. At 25 yards I drop the hammer on him, as I go up there I think that I see a band so I announce it and everyone's comment is "yeah right!" I pick it up and sure enough it’s my second honker band! One year to the day that I killed my first one! How weird. But that was the only goose for the night, even though we had others look at us, they were pulled away by the massive flocks headed north to feed.

Sunrise over the Fullbodies

http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/7293/122606sunriseoverthedekpt9.jpg

The spread from a distance (2 doz Hunter series fullbodies, 2 doz pro grades, and 1 doz real geese)

http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/9632/spreadfromdistance21226ln6.jpg
Left Side of the spread

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/9785/averydeksta5.jpg

My Band

http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/3120/122606mewithband4td5.jpg

Close up of the band

http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/9929/122606mewithband3jj2.jpg

[HRK]

now thats really sweet ,great job keep it up, hey is that a 1028 series band?????

[Greg Ruark Jr.]

Nice work. Wanna sell the band?lol

[Killer Miller]

Barry, it looks like it is a 1028 band. I have one of those, the double banded bird I shot a few weeks back.

[HRK]

yea i got a 1008 series this year and knew they had gone up that # just cool seein it.

[Killer Miller]

Yea we killed 7 banded geese out of a flock that we dropped our limit of 8 out of and they were all 1008 and 0988 series bands if I remember correctly. That was the day after X-mas last year. So I have 2 of them and a few days before that, I shot a single that I broke off a flock and it had a 1008 band also. That bird was about 700 numbers off the ones we killed out of the flock.

[HRK]

i think 0998 was last years or the year befores bird , sounds like the two 1008 was probably banded in the same area being only 700 #s apart. thats cool we track our birds that way here.

[iawaterfowler88]

Hmmm my girlfriends dad killed a 1008 band this year. Where was your guys 1008 bands from? His was in Minnesota somewhere, I think by the Biminji (sp) area. Miller where did your 1028 come from? or have you found out yet?

[HRK]

my 1008 series was from missouri

[greenhead]

i have a 1028 band. shot it last year

[HRK]

damn i might be off a year or so on my band #s they started useing 1008 this year i thought in my area

[Wild Wings]

Our five bands from Nunavut were all 1008 bands and I got two that were only 65 apart!!

Wild Wings

[Smashfest]

we had a great week 2 years ago! we killed a $100 double banded goose. the other bird with it had a 0988 series on it , three days later we shot 2 double banded white tauras bands and 2 single goose bands out of a flock of 6 geese! the metal bands were a 0988 series with the collared band being a189, the other taurus band was d089 with an 0978 being both from ontario, followed by an 948 being from northern illinois. i'd say it was a pretty good week we ended up killing 12 bands in a week between 5 of us! now i just want a miner band to add to the collection!!

[bandseeker]

holy crap 12 bands in a week ,great pics and story guys .i been to souther ill and man where they loaded up with geese a was working at the justrite company in matoon was a long ride back home on a friday night seeing geese everywhere .