# What would you do?



## JerryH (Jun 17, 2014)

So a friend sends me a text with a pic that says.

They're here - where are you?


----------



## lucdavis (Dec 28, 2012)

Could you please PM me the coordinates of said "here"... I'd be glad to go check it out and then report back on what your options are... in a day or two...  Better get after that!


----------



## JerryH (Jun 17, 2014)

But I would have to miss out on this


----------



## JerryH (Jun 17, 2014)

We finally got out of traffic and out of town. After hours on the road we came over the hill to the familiar sight of Sweetgrass. 

As I pulled up to the window to greet the Boarder Officer. We were ready for the usual 90 questions of what was our purpose for wanting to enter Canada. In a stern look he asks What's your purpose in Canada. I answered to escape the election. He gets a big grin and says yah It's pretty bad, bring your gun paperwork inside. It was the fastest boarder crossing I've ever had. Ten minutes top.


----------



## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

I have a feeling I'm about to get really jealous...


----------



## JerryH (Jun 17, 2014)

We got up to our destination and found the roosts were froze and the roads were soft and fields were soup. We found birds but not what we expected. The storm the day before we got there had took its toll and pushed birds out. We pointed the truck south looking for dryer fields and higher concentrations of birds. After a couple of hours driving south we found them. By then the morning flight was over. We drove around getting familiar with the lay out of the land. There is plenty of scenery up there. I just love finding old homesteads & barns in western Canada


----------



## JerryH (Jun 17, 2014)

There was more going on than driving around looking at old barns & houses. More on that later.


----------



## paddler (Jul 17, 2009)

I'd have called in sick!


----------



## JerryH (Jun 17, 2014)

paddler213 said:


> I'd have called in sick!


 That's not the answer you gave me when I told you to get up here.

Speck Fest 2016

What we found out spotting was there was plenty of snows. Very few lessers, honks. Specks were well - in over abundance. I don't think I've ever seen the concentration of specks that we did this year. Specks are by far my favorite goose to pursue. It didn't take long to realize we were in speckheaven or at speckmania or speckapalooza it was specktacular or em simply put arch your back screaming good speckalicious.

This year was a first in sorts. We took 3 guns each a 12ga, 20ga and 28 gauges.

Day one split pea soup. We woke up to fog & very little wind. We packed the 20's in the truck and drove through the soup to our pea field destination. The Hutterites must of used their worst combine to harvest this field. I've never seen so many peas left in the field. For late October I thought It would have been striped clean. What Zink would call a loafing pond lol. We were 1 1/2 miles from the roost

With last year's Remington rebates I'm overloaded with 20ga #4 steel. So I gave it a go. We ended up with 2 limits of darks and some snows. Hind sight we should of been more selective on specks. We shot a couple of pups and should of waited for some bar belly beauties. But it was hard with the fog that lingered all morning.

Nothing but yellow (pun intended)


----------



## paddler (Jul 17, 2009)

Did you take your D300?


----------



## JerryH (Jun 17, 2014)

paddler213 said:


> Did you take your D300?


 It never left the bag lol. It was wet & rained on us one day & need more lessons. I should of used it for the old barns & homestead shots. The area we ended up at had some of the most interesting old homesteads I've seen up there. I love old weathered grain elevators also.

Maybe on the second trip?


----------



## JerryH (Jun 17, 2014)

On day two my goal was to shoot dark limits with the 28's. It didn't happen. Lessers were far and few to be had. Toasty & Hammernhonks sparked my interest hunting with a 28 a few years ago. So I thought Canada would be my best option for multiple chances in a day. Well we could of filled the truck with specks but the limit is 4 per day. We were very selective on the specks we chose to shoot. We wanted some well colored adults this day. We had 7 specks on the ground. John had one bird to fill his limit. He shot my over/under up until that point and said screw it I want a third shot so he switched up to his 20. A beauty floated in over the pocket and he pulled up and dropped it. It had a band. It was a 15 year old bird banded in Ophir Alaska. To think of how many decoy spreads this old bird has flown by. Why did it choose ours to belly up to is beyond me? Pretty awesome though. The numbers of specks this year were incredible. 

The new Weatherby SA-08 performed very well with out any hiccups. I was very happy with the gun. I was shooting HW13 #6's and steel #5's through a extended Carlson's choke tube. Both shot types worked well when I was on target lol. With the 28 I discovered very quickly that either your on target or your not. It was either birds were hit hard or a clean miss. Maybe next year I can hit my goal with the little gun?


----------



## hamernhonkers (Sep 28, 2007)

Dang Jerry, I am jealous man!! Those are some sweet looking tar bellies man. Well done:mrgreen:


----------



## CPAjeff (Dec 20, 2014)

Amazing looking specs!


----------



## Idratherbehunting (Jul 17, 2013)

And my bucket list keeps get longer and longer...


----------



## JerryH (Jun 17, 2014)

Here's one more for those who enjoy goose porn. It was a mixed bag of sorts kind of morning. Specks, a few lesser's, a couple of ross, snows and a few Mallards. While field hunting for geese I despise ducks. They always come in when geese are working. Darting around getting in the way and flaring the geese. So we shot a few. 

It was a great trip over all. I will never forget the kamikaze snow that after being shot, slammed into my homemade vortex and blew it apart. 

Lessons learned this year. The 12ga never got pulled out of the case. So its staying home next year. Remington 20ga 1oz steel #4 works well of decoying geese. Load a lot more 28ga shells for next year. The little Weatherby is going to be getting a workout.


----------



## paddler (Jul 17, 2009)

JerryH said:


> Here's one more for those who enjoy goose porn. It was a mixed bag of sorts kind of morning. Specks, a few lesser's, a couple of ross, snows and a few Mallards. While field hunting for geese I despise ducks. They always come in when geese are working. Darting around getting in the way and flaring the geese. So we shot a few.
> 
> It was a great trip over all. I will never forget the kamikaze snow that after being shot, slammed into my homemade vortex and blew it apart.
> 
> Lessons learned this year. The 12ga never got pulled out of the case. So its staying home next year. Remington 20ga 1oz steel #4 works well of decoying geese. Load a lot more 28ga shells for next year. The little Weatherby is going to be getting a workout.


Nice, Jerry. I'll be taking that same Remington 20 gauge load up in a bit. It'll be interesting to compare it to the Federal 3/4 ounce 4s load.

If you make another trip up this year, let's get together with your camera for a couple of hours. I'll likely be taking two new cameras up with me. The D500 for BIF, and Sony's new RX100 Mk V for pretty much everything else including 4K video.


----------

