Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Waves of geese
Late-waking specklebellies show autumn’s glory
CARLISLE — Thursday morning appeared to be a total loss until late-waking specklebelly geese painted a postcard picture of an Arkansas autumn.
The hunt, arranged by federal magistrate judge Joe Volpe, is a November tradition. Thursday’s group consisted of Volpe, Shawn Tobin of Sherwood, Anne Marie Doramus of Little Rock, John Ray White of Little Rock, Travis Smith of Oklahoma City and Chris Hundley of Oklahoma City. As always, Nick Posusta, owner of Eagle Head Outdoors, was our guide.
Eagle Head seems an odd name for a goose hunting enterprise. An “Eagle Head,” Volpe explained, is goose hunting vernacular for a snow goose, which often has a white head and a dark body.
It’s funny how a relationship with a hunting guide evolves over the years. The first outing is always formal and aloof. The relationship warms with subsequent hunts and eventually becomes more like a friendship. It’s the result of Posusta knowing that his hunters are competent and, most important, safe.
Volpe, Smith, Hundley, Tobin and I arrived at the rendezvous point in Lonoke County before dawn. The temperature was cool, but not cool enough to warrant heavy clothes. We welcomed this because it was a very long walk across soft broken ground to an A-frame blind at the edge of a ditch and a field. The scent of freshly burned rice stubble filled our nostrils. Our meager gear was light, and our casual gait helped us avert sweating.
Posusta greeted us at the blind and gave us a brief tutorial. Keep gun safeties engaged at all times except when shooting, and re-engage safeties before bringing guns back into the blind, he said. Posusta would tell us when to shoot, and he instructed us to observe responsible fields of fire that do not interfere with or endanger other hunters.
In the predawn darkness, geese made a timorous din from their roost on a nearby reservoir. Expectations were muted based on a poor shoot on Wednesday. Goose hunting has become very popular in Arkansas, and intense hunting pressure has made geese very wary, Posusta said. The pressure is most intense in the Stuttgart area, and Posusta said he’s noticed that geese have started to avoid A-frame blinds.
The usual wave of geese at first light did not arrive, and the sun rose over an empty blue sky. The air was quiet except for muted conversation among the hunters and the usual bickering that occurs between Volpe and Tobin. This particular squabble involved a white gun case that Tobin believes would be a fashionable accessory for Volpe’s shotgun, a white Beretta A400. Doramus calls it the White Rhino. It certainly stands out among the usual lineup of camouflage duck guns.
“Tobin’s been obsessing about this gun case,” Volpe groused. “He wears me out.”
“It’s back on sale right now,” Tobin interjected.
“So I tell him to text me a link,” Volpe continued. “The link he sent is for a hand sanitizer dispenser. I’m like, ‘Tobin, I can get this at Kroger for a third of the price.”
“Yeah, but you’ll get in three days if you order it from these people,” Tobin said.
“Tobin! I can get it today, on the way home, if I DON’T order it from them!”
Naturally, the retorts and rejoinders spun that conversation into a dozen dead-end alleys. One of those involved a tale about my brother in Chicago whose girlfriend of 16 months recently informed him that she’s a miner.
“He took it really, really hard,” I said.
“Wait a minute! What, did you say he’s dating a minor?” Smith asked. “How old is your brother?’
“That’s right, a miner,” I said. “He’s 65.”
“How can you date someone for 16 months and not know she’s a minor?” Volpe asked, disgustedly.
“That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout!” I said. “I knew it when I met her. Her hardhat with the big light on the front of it was a dead giveaway!”
A stony silence fell over the blind, followed by raucous laughter.
“Boo!” Volpe yelled. “BOOO!”
Tobin howled, mostly because Volpe was the one that took the bait.
Slowly, the geese awoke. Posusta answered their scattered trills with enough conviction to persuade a few to give our spread a look. They examined us from a safe altitude for an excruciatingly long time. Posusta’s calling became increasingly plaintive, and the geese became increasingly louder - so loud that you could hear the air rasp over their vocal chords.
“Get ready,” Posusta said quietly. “Get ready! Get ready! Take ‘em!”
Two geese fell over the decoys, and I shot a straggler overhead trying to escape out the back door.
“It’s hard when there’s no wind,” Posusta said, regaining his breath. “They have all the time in the world to circle and circle and circle
The groups got steadily larger. At about 9 a.m., the first big wave arrived. They made a deafening racket. Nobody moved. We all stared at the ground awaiting the order to shoot.
This time geese rained down. The shot to kill ratio sounded fairly even. I videoed the whole thing with my iPhone.
“Nice shooting, Hendricks!” Volpe taunted.
“I shot every one of them!” I retorted, brandishing my phone.
When all the birds were retrieved, the group exhaled in relief.
“I didn’t move a muscle,” Volpe said. “I wasn’t going to be the one that screwed it up.”
Posusta relaxed and set us up for the grand finale, courtesy of three big waves that approached low from the east. Again, nobody looked up, but we could tell that they formed the big tornado for which light geese famous. Inexplicably, most of the flock broke away except for one group that dropped down over the decoys. Again, most of them fell, including one that recovered and lit the burners to escape low from the side. I was on that end of the blind, so I had the only shot.
“Kill that bird!” Smith shouted. I snapped folded the goose with a single downward shot at the far edge of my pattern to fill my three-bird limit.
“That’s the best way to do it, just like we did,” Posusta said. “You see these guys that have fourteen A-frames with 50 hunters. They empty their guns into those big flocks. Fifty hunters, three shots per gun, that’s 150 shots. They kill 45-60 birds, and guess what! They just educated several hundred birds, and they’re going to harder to call from now on.
“They way we just did it, only a few got away. All of those other birds were way over there on that reservoir, and they don’t have a clue as to what just happened.”
We ended the hunt one bird shy of our limit. The effect it had on the group’s mood was phenomenal.