Its November 16th today but to all of us die hard waterfowlers it feels a lot like Christmas Eve! The Midwest has a huge snow storm barring down on us for Friday/Saturday with 6-10 inches of snow getting dumped to the north of us! Anyone that hunts Rochester with us knows that means MIGRATORS moving in. I find myself checking the weather channel every 15 minutes just to make sure they haven't changed the forecast or that the storm isn't sliding south. I don't want everyone to think that this will be the big push but the way its looking, this will be a great way to push some numbers of geese into our area. The temps will finally get down to where they should be and that will help freeze up some ponds and shallow lakes up north.
Before I get to excited about our upcoming storm system moving into the area, lets relive some of October and the good hunting we had. We spent most of the month beating up on wood ducks and a few other puddle ducks. September gave us more rain than I can ever remember and that created new hiding places for the ducks. Unfortunately for them the boys at Last Pass are great at playing hide and seek and we were able to find the little nooks and cranny's that the ducks have been trying to hide out in!
The goose hunting that we did in October was pretty good. We mostly hunted geese towards the end of the month when all our fields were harvested. We lucked out and had a good push of new birds into Rochester about the same time our fields were harvested. For three weeks now we've been picking on these big swamp donkeys and they keep coming back for more! We ran hunts last weekend Fri-Sun and all three days our guys had a blast shooting good numbers of geese. I love this time of year because the geese are new and really dumb and the hunts are usually done by 10:00 so we can still make breakfast at the café!
This year we had more field work than we've ever had with multiple fields needing upgrades. I say it every year, but without our team of guys, getting fields ready would take Bryce and me forever to get done. I would like to thank Charlie, Dave, Jack, Tyler and Reed for helping us out. The fields look great and I'm basing that off the dozens and dozens of geese that decoyed last weekend!
Below are some of the pics we've taken so far this year. I'm hoping its just the tip of the iceberg and this year keeps rolling with terrific hunts. If you want to get in on the action give me or Bryce a call and we'll hook you up!
Hawk with a giant
One of the many bunches that worked into our decoys so far this year
The Alaska boys getting in on some Minnesota Giants
Upgrading the Northfield
Hawk with another banded early season goose.
Early season means great chances at bands and they come in flocks!
Great sign in your field when you set up and see tracks and droppings all over the place
Olivia with her first goose! I love seeing kids get their first birds! What a great feeling
Bruce, Dean, Egon and Mark on a great morning hunt. These guys have hunted with us for years and it was great to see them have a good hunt. Egon flew all the way from Denmark to visit with friends and to hunt with Last Pass! Thanks guys!
Jack, Ryan and Kyle on a quick 35 minute hunt
Josie doing what she loves.
You gotta love when the first flock of the day looks like this!
