Sept 1, I was down in Tennessee with my new Upland Gun Company/RFM 3 inch 12. 4 gun crew.
We were hunting on a sod farm. 8 dozen decoy spread. Scouting showed 100 plus birds comming all at once. The farm is a checkerboard of fields cut into 500 yard fields. This access is secured by Gunner 2. It is his accesses, his spot.

We were hunting over one that had recently been turned up and seeded. The smallest of sprouts were coming up. We had marked them in this field. The problem, it is all flat short ground. Hiding was going to be difficult. Hiding turned out to be impossible.

They came, flew right to the spread and when they got just off the first ground blind picked up high and fast. They landed snout 200 yards away. Stuck on bare ground we watched them for 2 hours when they got up and left.

The ground blinds were well brushed. Two problems were present. 1) There was no surrounding cover. We tried to compensate for this w 4 dozen silhouettes covering the blinds. 2) The ground in that field was brown tilled dirt, but a hue of green from the sprouts. Everything else around there was green. The result was when they got to the start of the line, they got up and went over there. It was very cloudy and foggy that morning. The Canada came without any audio warning.

Friday:

The War Counselor took position over looking the farm on Thursday. A group of 40 came in over a small ridge. The farm is surrounded by hard wood choked trees with deep creeks on three sides. It sets in a little bowl at the bottom. The sun rises just off 11 o’clock looking out on the whole farm. A group of 40 came in and went to the same X as the big group bailed to on Sept 1.

Gun 1. “The problem is regardless of how many decoys you use or don’t, they are going to finish off the decoys.”

Gun 2, “There is an eight foot wide drainage ditch, gentle slopping running parallel to that field.”

Me, “We‘ve got a lot of taller, standing green grass, smart weed in that ditch. Could we cut a bunch of green on up from where we would blind up, use that to green in, we would have a bunch of green grass standing over the blinds.”

Gunner 2, “Yeah, it’s got water in it from this rain, but it is shallow banked enough there to lay in” He is pointing at my OnX map.

“Gunner 1, “I think we bring eleven decoys. Set them up with in groups of 3 or 4, staggered the groups in a little V.

“Gunner 2, “I wonder where all those other birds went?”

Saturday:

Gunner 4 has to go back to Indiana after the hunt on September 1. However, 4 am Myself, Gunner 1, and Gunner 4 are setting at a gas station off I75 in Tennessee. One problem, Gunner 2 is not here. The farm is not far, but he is not here.

Gunner 1 gets on the group chat. Gunner 2, “ I’m five minutes out.”

Five minutes turned into twenty minutes. Gunner 2 rolls in at 4:30 am. He gets out of the truck. We get in our trucks. He figures it out. He leads the convoy out.

The march in was moderate. It was a march, but the jet sled and shelled frames went over the wet short grass just fine.

We get the decoys, blind, everyone’s personal kit to the spot.

Gunner 3 and myself get the blinds into the ditch. The ditch is eight to ten feet wide with the bottom is solid grass that sinks ankle deep saturated with water.

Gunner 3 and I go 300 yards down ant stat cutting grass with an electric hedge trimmer. We get the blinds greened in well. I pay extra attention to the back, and back corners of the blinds. We have great side cover. We have great foot cover especially when the green cuttings were added. However we lined the blinds to the back edge of the ditch. This was because putting the head of the blinds in the ditch put our feet above our heads and laying in a U shape.

Gunner 2 and I go hide the trucks.

We get back and everyone is on their blinds 30 minutes before shooting light.

I’m setting down in my blind with one door closed. It is clear to me when we lay down, we cannot see the field. The bank between the field and blinds is higher than our line of sight.

Right at day light. Honking! A group of 6 fly from our 1 o’clock. We all get in and down, pressing down as deep into the ditch as we can. More Honking and More Honking. No one cs see anything. Then a V of 100 geese fly right over use, Honking. They are a little high. They have circle out. Gunner 1 and Gunner 3 answer. We cannot see, but we hear them turn. The callers shut up. The V flys back over us. A little lower. I can see a bird right over me. His head is bent like the shape of a horizontal J staring down at me hard in the ditch. They circle. Gunner 1 and 3 sound back. I see just a flicker of the back lines wings turning. I see one drop out of the ski as they come over the decoys. The rest hook over us, 10 yards. They quickly turn and we kind of see, mostly hear them land to the right, and behind the decoys. We can here’s them.

We lay there for a bit. A goose is honking tn the decoys. We hear a decoy get knocked over. Nothing flys. Straining, but keeping my neck on the bs k of the pad, I can see the last decoy. More grunting, clucking nosies. The ones on the right are walking to the left.

They get up and just off the ground, hop to the left over the only rise in the field.

There is honking right in front of me, but no one can see. Finally, I see two long black necks. Gunner 1, “Go.” I do not need an explanation point. The word “Go” was spoken just loud enough for the line to hear.

Out we come. The birds get off the ground as the wings of the blinds flap open. I am on the left. We angled the blinds facing right. Shotgun blast are going off. The far left bird is flying straight out w a little left hand angle. He is past the decoys. The Double comes up. I mount using the mount to build in the lead. Right modified barrel sends an 1 /14 ounce of TSS Eights crumple him as he falls over the littke rise out of sight w a thud.

Standing up I can see him. I flip him over and there is a bs d my first.

Gunner 2, “ I broke on that bird and right as I did, I saw it crumbling.”

I look over. He is on the right side talking to Gunner 1. “Yeah, shooting the same birds.”

Gunner 1 goes over and picks up the second bird he killed. “It’s banded.” The other bird Gunner two is holding, and it has no bands.

Gunner 3 is still on the blind side of the ditch. He has two down. One of his takes off running. I take off running. I actually did not lead him great, but the Left Trigger/Barrel with same load and fixed modified choke gets him killed.

I go over picking up the bird two hundred yards away from the group. “He is banded!”

Walking back into the group, Gunner 3 looks at me, “That is your bird.”

“Who knocked it down?”

Gunner 3, “I did.” I hand him his bird as he walks to pick up his second.

Gunner 2, “I shot that one too.” Gunner 3 bending down to pick up his second bird from the field.” It too is banded.

Gunner 3, “I know you did.”

Gunner 1 hands me my bird. The band is has one number eight sized crater in it at the top. It almost shot through. The bird I finished for Gunner 3 had a number eight TSS pellet caught on the off side.

6 birds w 4 bands.

A tradition like no other is had. We all break down the birds and get them vacuumed sealed and on ice. A quick wash with water and rubbing alcohol. We meet up at a Cracker Barrel for panels stood all around.

4:30 PM Same Day:

Gunner 1, his son, and I are on a combo cut and standing corn field with feeders calf lot dividing the fields. “Look at all those Dove!”

This was a wild and semi dangerous tell. I write it up tomorrow.

One day 5 banded geese and a Three Man limit of Doves. My first limit and with my new double. Oh, and no one was killed nor crippled.

Congrats on a good shoot.

I have been hunting waterfowl since age 13.

I have shot 3 birds in my life that were banded. A hen mallard, a drake mallard, and a bluewing teal. 2 of the 3 had been banded within 5 miles of where I shot them, and only one was a young bird. The first one, the hen mallard was 11 years old when I shot her, and had been banded in Idaho of all places (I shot her in Minnesota).

I hunted teal for our early season, and used the gun my parents gave me for my 16th birthday (HK marked Benelli SBE). It still kills birds just fine.

How was your teal opener?

We killed 26 more doves yesterday.

My Dove Risotto was eaten up in one day.

This weekend I’m going to go dove kabobs on a charcoal grill.

Teal opener here was not very good.

It’s been a wet year up here, and the birds are dispersed.

Then we had a line of storms come through and it got unseasonably cold.

The birds migrated south mostly.

There were a lot of them- the pond I hunted had over 1000 on it two weeks ago, but we saw maybe 30 on Saturday and I quit early on Sunday after seeing 6-7 and none in time to shoot or in range.

Geese will probably go better this next weekend, but the guys hunting them said it is slower than usual as the birds have more options with the water.

Once the fields start getting picked it will pick up.

I think the moisture helped production of birds, but it’s just going to make hunting them harder.