Early Goose Season

Yesterday’s newspaper had an announcement that the North Dakota early Canada goose season opener is set for August 15. At first I was sort of excited about it. This has been a long summer with some problems that I hadn’t expected that kept me from some projects that I had planned. So, I was kind of excited about taking Cookie goose hunting. Then I walked outside and got hit in the face by the mid-90 temperatures and the humidity.

Sorry guys. Goose hunting, at least for me, does not mean beating back hoards of mosquitoes and flicking ticks off my arms, legs, head and neck. Besides, my waterfowl clothing is for cold weather. Hunting from a sauna hasn't got much appeal.

Of course, there are a lot of good reasons for going out in the early season and they all revolve around the need for population control. There are too many birds and not enough habitat. I don’t have any problem with the early season and I do intend to try and get in one or two hunts and if, by some magical combination of the planets, I manage to actually get my limit of five geese that would be enough to fill up a good part of my freezer. I know a lot of hunters will breast their birds and toss the rest but I was brought up not to waste meat from the game I killed so a one day limit of Canada geese in my freezer would be a huge bonus for the coming winter.

I’ve been watching geese so finding them won’t be hard. What will be hard is taking enough insect repellent to not be carried away by the mosquitoes. We’ll see how it works out. Hunting them in such warm weather as we’ve been having is something I still haven’t managed to get a handle on so any advice from readers who have some experience with warm weather goose hunting is welcome. glg