Goose storm
Large late flock of specklebellies generates a lifetime memory
WHEATLEY — The sight of 5,000 geese coming at me almost head high was so fearsome and so startling that I almost forgot to shoot.
That vision stamped a bold-faced exclamation point on an already decent waterfowl hunt with Brad Conley of Rogers Dec. 15 at Conley’s farm near Wheatley.
The waterfowl hunt followed a superb deer hunt with Conley the previous weekend at his place in Washington County. I killed my first deer of the season at the end of an arduous hunt that ended elatedly in the waning minutes of legal shooting light. In retail sales and in hunting, Conley believes it’s important to sustain momentum, so he proposed an impromptu waterfowl hunt to nurture the streak.
Conley and I have been friends since 1975, when we were in sixth grade at Henderson Middle School in Little Rock. He played clarinet in band, and I played snare drum. We did not know at that time that we were both avid fishermen. I specialized in fishing golf course ponds after dark. Like a ninja, I wore black clothing and was expert at evading security guys who used quiet golf carts to sneak up on unsuspecting trespassers.
Conley, a Hall High graduate, grew up in the Markham/ Rodney Parham area. He knew all of the little neighborhood honey holes that were lightly fished and held monster bass. He, too, had a couple of secret spots that were off limits. More than once was he chased off the premises.
While sipping iced libations, Conley showed me some of his long-ago haunts on his smart phone via Google Earth.
“I caught my first 5-pound bass in this little lake right here,” Conley said, zooming the image onto a neighborhood that I know well. “You can park in this lot over here and walk right to it.”
He toggled over to another small neighborhood pond that I didn’t know existed.
“Back in the day, this one here was loaded with shellcrackers (redear sunfish).”
Then, we pivoted to the morning’s matter at hand. Conley’s farm has an assortment of waterfowl habitat. He has dry rice fields and flooded rice fields. He has a buckbrush reservoir. He has a bit of flooded timber, and he has a nasty slough that he said is better suited to hunters with younger legs.
Gadwalls comprised the bulk of the area’s flock at that point, but a good number of mallards was about, too. Geese were also super abundant. The buckbrush reservoir offered our best chance at getting an early limit of ducks, Conley said.
Reaching that spot requires a long walk through shallow water. We stuffed two bags of decoys, our shotguns and gear into a pair of tiny pirogues. With willow staffs, we slogged through mud and tangled limbs.
“With this wind, I think we should put a dozen decoys in both of those open areas to the right and left,” Conley said. “That will funnel them into this open area in front of us.”
After accomplishing that task, Conley and I wedged ourselves amid a stand of buckbrush. About six minutes before legal shooting time, a drake mallard spiraled downward and put on the brakes. With his neck curled downward in a perfect U, he hovered over the decoys for about 10 seconds. I’ve only seen hummingbirds hover that long. Finally comfortable that his landing spot was safe, he fluttered onto the water. He swam contentedly, but he also seemed to know what time it was. Two minutes before shooting time, he departed.
Many ducks worked our hole, but gadwalls are like prospective homebuyers that won’t settle for anything less than perfection. For reasons unknown, the mallards that came over wouldn’t commit, either.
During a lull in the action, Conley noticed that I didn’t have a duck call.
“I don’t call when I hunt somebody else’s place,” I said. “A lot of people prefer to do all of the calling themselves. It’s just better not to call than to irritate my host.”
Multiple callers are kind of like musicians in a band, Conley agreed. They have to be in sync and in rhythm. They have to play off each other. Mostly they have to play the right music for the situation. You have to know the right time to blow a comeback call, and you have to know what level of urgency the comeback call must project for the situation. Most of all, you have to know when not to call.
“There’s one guy I hunt with that blows his call upside down,” Conley said. “Upside down?” I asked. “Yeah. You know how a mallard hen quacks when she’s looking for company?”
Conley blew a series of plaintive quacks that had a descending tone.
“That’s the right way to do it,” Conley said. “A lot of people blow that note in an ascending pitch. You know, ‘upside down.’ ”
Conley blew that sequence.
“That’s an alarm call, man! That’s what ducks say when they’re blowing up and getting out of Dodge,” Conley said with intensifying animation. “They’re not going to work that call!”
“GUILtee!” I thought in a singsong tone, grateful not to have done that in present company.
“And the feed call,” Conley said. “People do that wrong, too.”
Conley blew the familiar radio static cackle.
“That’s the feed call that ducks make when they’re flying. If you listen to what they say on the water, it sounds like this.”
Conley blew a series of quieter staccato notes in a more relaxed cadence.
“Well, thank goodness I do that right,” I thought. Even if we don’t take another shot, this tutorial has been well worth the trip.
Despite abundant opportunities, we scratched out a couple of gadwalls and a ringneck. Most looked us over and went directly to the north end of the reservoir. Curiosity finally got the better of Conley, who proposed going on a scouting mission. We dragged all of our gear back to the levee and then rode the levee in his Can-Am side-byside. About a thousand ducks loafed in open water, but they flushed at our approach. In minutes they were gone.
“They’ve gone over to the rice field, but they obviously want to be here,” Conley said excitedly. “But if they’re down on that field, they’re not going to come back here.”
“I’ve seen this movie many times,” I said. “We can chase ducks from one place to another all morning, but we’re not going to shoot anything. Let’s go sit in the pit blind in your flooded rice. We’ll get enough passing shots to fill a limit. We might even get a big flight.”
We mostly got passing shots on ringnecks, but we also bagged a couple more gadwalls and a northern shoveler.
During a lull, a juvenile white-fronted goose flying very low headed toward us. It was out for a morning stroll without a care in the world. There is nothing like a goose’s expression at the instant it realizes it has royally messed up, but it was too late. A single shot from my Remington V3 splashed it. The same thing happened shortly after with a lone snow goose that Conley splashed with his Browning BPS.
“That is the loudest shotgun I have ever heard,” I said. “Are you shooting a 10-gauge?”
“Nope. Just 3 1/2-inch 12-gauge,” Conley said. “There is such a thing as not having enough gun, but you can never have too much gun.”
Thousands of geese were on a dry rice field adjacent to our flooded field. It was about time for us to leave when the whole lot of them rose en masse amid a deafening din of shrieks and thunderous wingbeats. It looked like a giant wall cloud advancing quickly about 25 yards high.
The spectacle temporarily paralyzed me, but Conley’s yelling snapped me out of it.
Conley and I both shot twice. Four specklebellies hit the water like bombs all around us.
We ended with five specks, one snow goose and 10 ducks, including six gadwalls.
Shooting ringnecks flying at Mach 8 is a ton of fun, but I will see and hear those geese in my dreams for the rest of my days.