On to the Regular Season!

Unfortunately the Early goose season is over and along with that so is the five bird limit. But with the end of that early goose season brings on the regular season and also the chance to shoot ducks! We closed out the early goose season with a bang. We were able to take advantage of some naïve geese using one of our fields. It was a lot of fun but now I am ready to bring on some new birds with hopefully a little push coming in the next couple of weeks of some new geese.

 I am amazed at how much the leaves have changed color in the last week! It's a true sign that fall is officially here! And with the changing of the season it's time to get everybody's mind on hunting and getting out and bagging some geese! We have a field holding 2 to 300 geese in it daily. Give us a call and we will line you up on a hunt.

 This weekends duck hunting opener looks to be something special. There is a pile of wood ducks around the area with some sprinkling of teal and a handful of mallards. I'm hoping the group that we have going on Saturday throws up a dirty pile!

Another Big Bunch Working Into the Honey Hole

Bryce and Jeremy After the Hunt

Everyone Loves Bands!

I Couldn't Make It Through The Early Season Without Showing One Of Our Many Good September Hunts! 

Good luck to everyone that is going out chasing ducks and geese this weekend! Please be safe shoot straight and enjoy time in the great outdoors with family and friends! 

Week 1 recap

The first week of the season is over with and in the books! What a fun and great week it was. We always save the opener for friends and family and this year was no different. We enjoyed a wonderful sunrise and a great flight of geese! Opener brings an excitement like no other. Dogs are full of energy ready to grab the first feathers of the new season, guys are ready to pull the trigger, decoys are finally back out in the field and we are even excited to stubble blinds! It's the best time of the year!!!

Opening weekend was super fun for us because Saturday Bryce was able to take his daughter Skyler out hunting with us. She had a great time and is starting to become a seasoned veteran at decoy setting and picking up! In a few years hopefully she can start guiding for us!!!

Sunday morning of opening weekend I was able to take my three-year-old son Kelton out hunting with me. I had more enjoyment watching him pick up birds then I've had in quite some time! There is nothing like seeing the face of a young child out hunting for the first time! He was so excited to see the geese coming in that even if I told the whole story on this blog page it wouldn't do it justice. It was hilarious having him tell me to shoot them when they were at 100 yards and me having to stop and tell him to let the geese come a little closer! Bryce and I are very fortunate to have children who love the Hunt like Aubrey Kelton Skyler and Brady do!

This early season we have been taking a bunch of photos of the hunts. Every year we take "hero" shots of all the geese we harvested but this year we are trying to show all parts of the hunt.

After the weekend we'll have a bunch more photos!

Stubbling Blinds

The Sun Rises On Another Season!

Bryce and Skylar

Kelton's First Sunrise In A Goose Spread (a Proud Dad!)

Kelton With A Big Goose

Kelton and His Buddy Hawk

Countdown is 1 day!

Less than 24 hours until the goose season FINALLY kicks off!!! A nice cold front came through last night bringing temps back down in the upper 60's and lower 70's with bearable humidity. We have a field all ready and we are just hoping the geese cooperate! For all you that are going out tomorrow, be safe, remember to aim and have fun!

Only 10 Days!...

With the humid hot weather as of late I'm really missing scenes like this!  There is nothing like a morning of fresh snow and a 10 mph NW wind.  But for now we get to enjoy shooting "summer geese".  Go time starts in 10 days and we are starting to get pretty excited around here.  The Labor Day weekend this year will be spent scouting and getting a game plan for the opener on Sept 6th.  A lot of people don't like hunting geese in Septembers early season because of the heat and bugs.  To tell you the truth I love it!  Hunts are usually done by 8:00 and we usually have our hashbrowns and eggs at the café by 10:00.  As for the bugs, its nothing a little bug dope can't take care of!  

 

Just an FYI to all our snow goose guys...  September 1st is when all remaining unbooked dates are open game.  If you want a certain weekend make sure you get ahold of me or Bryce so you don't lose your spot!

Dog Days of Summer

 

Wow where has the time gone?!  We have had a great summer but now its time to shift our attention away from catching walleyes and start focusing on killing geese.  I've been out the last 2 weeks checking roosts and loafing areas and all I can say is this year looks to be a good one!  I received an email in the middle of July from a friend that helps out the DNR with the banding projects and he told me that there was no shortage of goslings this year and now I believe him.  I hate to wish away the easy hunts of October and the migrator hunts of November but I'm really excited about he late season hunts of December!  I love the snow and cold and big slob geese bowed up coming into the kill hole!!!  Until then I guess I'll have to settle for swatting mosquitoes and shooting geese in September. 

 

The next few weeks will go by fast as usual and before we know it we'll be hunting geese again! 

 

Just a reminder to all our members...  Memberships are due by August 15th!  After the 15th they are open to the public so don't miss out on one of the best deals available!!!  For those that don't know what a membership is, its a pass that alloys you to come hunting whenever we are out in the field.  We have a couple guys that hunt 20+ days a year from that pass!  If you are interested in one please contact me or Bryce ASAP.

 

Last Pass Guide Service, L.L.C.

Chad Foster

 

 

My Son Kelton Helping Me Work With Hawk During the "Dog" Days of Summer

 

 

Hawk Enjoying Some Cool Water Retrieves On A Hot Day

Springtime FUN!

I sometimes wonder which is a better time of the year...fall or the spring?  I'd still lean towards the fall but spring would come in a close second.  I mean really close!  All of here at Last Pass have been very busy enjoying mushroom hunting, turkey hunting and walleye and crappie fishing. 

 

Turkey hunting is one of my favorite things to do in the outdoors.  I love how its usually a one on one game between you and the tom.  I love having a 30 pack of slob honkers back peddling in the decoys and 500+ snows screaming down in a major tornado but there is nothing like a big tom choking himself gobbling as he struts his way towards you!  And this year Bryce and I shot very nice toms.  I was lucky enough to shoot my bird only feet away from a good patch of morel mushrooms!  Nothing better than frying up turkey fingers and fresh mushrooms.

 

I've been seeing a lot of little fuzz balls swimming around with their parents.  I've received mixed answers on how the nesting was for Canada geese in Minnesota.  I've been told that the cold weather didn't effect the nesting success but the high water took out a good amount of nests.  In the next 3 weeks the banding reports will come out and we'll see how the hatch was for canadas.  I know I've been seeing a lot of large flocks flying which tells us the molt migration is in full force.  Whatever the hatch report says I'm not going to be overly worried since last year was a horrible hatch and we had our best year since 2005!

 

This week is also the time when the snow geese have to be on their nests to have a good and healthy hatch.  From all the articles I've read it will hopefully be another great hatch.  Its been warm enough for them to get down to business so keep your fingers crossed for a pile of juvies for next spring!!!

 

We had a couple cancelations by previous members on their memberships for this year.  If anyone is interested give Me or Bryce a call ASAP to get yours today.  Its a great deal for the person who wants to hunt great fields a ton of times each year!

 

The Fall is right around the corner!  I can't wait until the cool crisp nights start and we can get back out in the fields chasing geese!  

 

Anything Better Than Morels In The Spring?

 

 

That's What I Call A Paintbrush!

 

 

 

2014 Spring Snows!

What a snow goose season!  We wrapped up the 2014 snow goose season and what a season it was.  This season will go down as the craziest and most difficult season that we've faced.  We were reminded that Mother Nature is in control at ALL times!  She pounded us with 2 big storms but with the great crew that we have, we overcame everything she threw at us! 

 

The second storm, Storm Titan, really threw us a curveball.  This was the storm that halted the migration from getting to Mound City until March 8th.  We started our hunting in Arkansas this year and were having good success until Titan rolled through and dumped 3" of snow and ice on us.  For us "northern boys" from Minnesota that isn't anything, just a dusting!  But for the people of Arkansas that is Armageddon!!!  It shut the hole NE part of the state down for a week and I'm serious too!  There are only a handful of plows in that area so the roads were all ice and snow covered and people were stuck everywhere.  After 3 days of dealing with the total shutdown of the NE part of the state we loaded up and headed north to Mound City anticipating a good push of birds into Squaw Creek.  The first 40-50 miles on the interstate were spent going 5-10 mile per hour!  The drive was horrible until we crossed into Missouri and then the sun was shining and the roads were clear.  You could just feel everyone's spirits lift! 

 

When I say it was a difficult season most our hunters won't know how hard it was on both the equipment and the guys.  Every field in NW MO was frozen solid and when you run 1500+ windsocks in a field, that means you have to drill 1500+ holes with a drill bit to get the decoys in the ground!  It took 8 hours to set the first field but the time improved on other fields after we figured out a "system"!  It made for late nights and early mornings! 

 

As for the hunting...  This year would be best described as the year of consistent hunting.  We had a couple 5-10 bird shoots but majority of our hunts were around 20-30 geese per field which is a typical snow goose hunt.  Even when we had a hot feed field holding 10,000 strong, we still only killed 27 off of it.  It was a weird season in Mound City with our best day being 63 and that was in an afternoon shoot.  We always swing for a homerun when it comes to snow goose hunting but this year it seemed we were getting base hit after base hit!  There was one field that we hot set the night before and it was a great zone with feeds all over and birds feeding heavily in our field.  I took a good group out there the next morning and nothing!  Not even 1 goose killed off the hot set that should've killed a pile on most years!  We recovered well in the afternoon and killed 22 but in most years that field should have had a monster day.  This years hunting although it started later than normal, it went a lot longer than usual in the Mound City area.  We usually are heading north to South Dakota around the 18th of March but this year there were still over 1.3 million on Squaw Creek at that time!  That aloud us to run guys longer in Missouri and not have to go and battle the cold, wet muddy conditions in SoDak. 

 

Unfortunately we did postpone a couple groups this year because the lack of birds at those dates.  This is the first year we've ever had to postpone anyone's hunt and we felt horrible about it.  Everyone that hunts with us knows we are straight shooters that tell the truth about the hunting.  We treat our hunters like we'd like to be treated by an outfitter and unfortunately the hunting wasn't up to our standards with goose numbers at an unhuntable number at that time.   Most the guys understood and believe me when I say that we want to kill them just as bad as all of you guys do! 

 

Once again I would like to thank all our hunters that came and hunted with us this year.  We are truly blessed to have all the fun and enjoyable groups that come and hunt with us.  We had most of our groups return from last year and we added a bunch of newbie groups!  Its no secret that our service is built on repeat hunters and we hope that these new groups will continue to come and enjoy hunting with us in the years to come. 

 

I also need to thank all the guys that bust their butts for us!  Bob, Mike, Adam, Dan and Jeremy.  These guys work their fingers to the bone and go on about 3 hours of sleep a night during the spring season.  They never complain... OK maybe they complain a little, but then they put their heads down and get the job done!  Most people don't understand the work it takes to do this.  At sport shows everyone always tells us we have the best jobs in the world (and we do!) but majority will never see the behind the scenes effort it takes to put guys on good hunts.  There's the obvious of stubbling blinds, scouting and setting spreads.  But there are the things that people don't see, late night hot sets till 1:00 am or when a storm comes through and has 50+ mph winds and knock over majority of the decoys and everyone wakes up at 2:30 am to fix them after going to bed at midnight because we hunted until dark and still had to charge batteries, feed dog and then find something to eat ourselves!  Or when a snow storm dumps 5 inches of snow and we have to dump all the snow out of the windsocks.  There is always something that comes up and our guys hardly ever have a day off.  They are a great group of guys and we couldn't do this without them!  Thanks fellas!!!

 

Here are just a handful of the many pictures we have from this season...

 

This is the view from our office!

 

 

Shooting for the Moon!

 

Afternoon Shoot

 

Refuge on 3-21-2014

 

Hawk

 

 Wes, Mike, Terry and Cole with 28 geese

 

 

Warted Up Ross

Start of ANOTHER tornado

 

 

Major Spin!

1 guy, 1 flock!!!  Not to bad if you ask me!

 

Couple of picks from this year

 

Refuge on 3-11-2014

 

The Crew

Adam, Dan, Mike and Bob

 

Peek a Boo!

 

First goose of the 2014 season!

 

 

There are tons more pics that I'll put up on the blog as the summer goes on just to remind everyone how much we are all missing hunting!  Now we are looking forward to hunting some turkeys, fishing walleyes and crappies and finding some morel mushrooms!  Then its time to start thinking about canadas again...

 

Just an FYI, memberships are due the beginning of August and if not paid by the 15th go up for sale to the public.  We also are starting to book 2015 snow goose hunts June 1st to the public so those that have hunted in the past have first dibs until then to book your days.  After June 1st anyone can snatch them up so don't delay!!!  I'll be posting more often than I have lately so keep checking back for updates.  Until then have a great spring and we'll see you all this fall!!!

 

Chad