The BilletHead's 2015/2016 season

[BilletHead]

I am getting hungry. Would someone please bring me a whopper value meal? Make it a large please. 

[BilletHead]

   As you can see by the last two posts I got lonely in the blind today and decided to give updates from the hunt . So what led up to today's hunt? Scouting and more scouting trying to figure out what the birds wanted to do. Well most of it worked.

  So we will start with day before yesterday and the "Scouting Tower" Huh you ask? Well my favorite farmer has built a brand mew leg for his numerous grain bins. It is 110 foot tall. Eleven flights to the top. I decided to take the climb up the stairs carrying the binoculars and camera. Everything but the big roost was frozen over. When I finally made it to the top the view was amazing. A nice clear day too with some wind and the top shook some So I look around,

   In the distance on the photo above is the big roost. Just a small amount of water in the middle of it is thawed. Now a couple of photos of the geese in the field between the ponds in the distance. The birds strung a couple hundred yards long. This is a mile away,

Hard to see them but they are in the pasture between ponds this side of the distant cows. Many snows flying too so I shot  some with the camera  from the tower,

 I was up there for the better part of an hour just taking the sight all in. Then the farmer decides to feed hay in the field by the roost. So as I watched him drive in with the binoculars the geese part like Moses parting the red sea. Some fly to the roost while others just walk out of the way of the truck. He than feeds two big bales of hay. I can see the birds moving and getting nervous. Farmer then decides to drive across the roost pond dam. Well that is when all heck breaks loose and there is a black cloud of birds going in all directions. Amazing sight. Ducks and geese both, I shoot some of them too as they fly by. Funny looking at them from their flight level 110 foot in the air,

They work over all the frozen ponds within sight and them most back to the only open water in the area the roost.

  No to yesterdays scout. Back to the tower only a ways up this time to get peeks at the ponds. his would be the day of the thaw getting into the lower sixties with a big south wind. I watched birds get off the roost and scatter all across the area seeking out and landing on open pockets of water opening up. Good! Now to hatch out a plan for a hunt.

BilletHead

 

 

[BilletHead]

  So up at four AM pretty early but as I am going to do this hunt solo it takes me quite a while to put things out. This allows me time for breakfast and coffee before leaving the house. I had chosen a pond that would work with a West North West wind. Clear skies and cold. Starting in the upper twenties. It was a fun hunt, not as many canada geese flying as I had hoped though. Enough to keep things interesting. Bagged two and should of had another, I have been known to miss . Mallards flew good and got my four drakes. One of the geese was a little cackler. It got cloudy which could of kept some of the geese on water? Large groups of snows in flight all morning. A few white fronts working around also. Had ten make a pass at that should I or shouldn't I range so I held back and did not fire.

BilletHead

 

[JohnP]

Awsome stuff as usual BH.  Thought I found the "X" wednesday afternoon to only be on the "y" yesterday :(.  Too much water (lakes up 25 ft) and late season wary birds made for a tough hunt.  Finally found a good concentration of birds but couldn't get em to land where we wanted and hard to compete with real birds especially with a mouthy hen in the timber a couple hundred yds away ;).  Although it was cool listening to her got frustrating when she'd pull everything to her :(.    

[curtisce]

Nice huntwith great results. We may have one more chanceafter this cold front comes thru this weekend.

[BilletHead]

Yes hoping for one more thaw in BilletHeadville. Tonight all but the roost will freeze over again.

BilletHead