This weekend was the third season opener for geese here. I took two buddies both Sat and today (Sun) who had never bird hunted before. We did pretty well and one of them seems pretty well hooked now.

Sat I took the younger dog . Multiple flights of several thousand geese (almost entirely Cackling Canadas) came in to have a look at our spartan silhouette decoy spread. I doubled on the first flight... then couldn't hit a thing the rest of the day. One of the guys also doubled.
Today I took the old dog to celebrate her 13th birthday. She had a blast.

Sent the fellas home an hour ago with all the goose breast's, some goose pastrami, and some recipes to try. Real good times.

Your pup is the spitting image of my Abby and Bump dogs. Thanks

Brown dogs rule!

How are the Canada's compared to speckle bellys? Don't see a whole lot of big flocks of Canada's down here. Have pretty much an unlimited supply of snow's and blue's though. Speck's are fairly common too. The Canada's usually hang around in the marsh or in peoples private lakes for the majority of the year, and I've really never seen people mess with them too much.

I will kill me a speck for the freezer every chance I get.

I've never tried to eat a snow/blue. Most hunters down here claim that they are no good. But I want to try to pluck one, then brine it for a day or so, then smoke it and see how it comes out.

Decided to check your threads down here.

Cool stuff.

So happy to see you got the old girl out. And glad she's still up to the task.

Carry on.

g4d,
I'm afraid I can't speak to that from experience, having not had the chance to kill a Speck yet. They fly over here and don't seem to touch ground. From what I've heard from friends the Specks are very good eating!
Where I usually hunt geese nearby we get Westerns, Cacklers, Taverner's, Lessers, a few Aleutian, and of course Duskies which are protected. Cacklers are by far the most numerous. We get a few Snow Geese here in the valley, not many, and I've never connected. The Westerns can be absolutely huge.. I'll fish around for a pic of a couple I've hit recently.

Thanks Geno! She still marks very well, better than my 8.5 year old. But she has some arthritis and so is very slow now. She was super happy

gamma4diesel
Here's those Western pics. These are from a couple years ago . I'll be targeting these big birds this week again





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Pretty much all we have down here are the ones I mentioned, but we are quite a drive from each other LOL. To me, Specks taste like wood ducks IMO, and they are prized down here. Ive never heard a Canada called a cackler, but I don't go on big goose hunts either. I don't know anyone that's killed Canada's, but i'm sure in other parts of the state there's coonasses that smoke them down. Maybe in the marsh. Right now the special season is open on snows/blues/ross. Electronic calls, un-plugged shotguns and no daily bag or possession limit.

Beautiful birds and beautiful choc. too!
I have a story about a lesser Canada. I was fishing one time at a pumping station along the Atchafalaya river and I CAUGHT a lesser Canada. She must of been nesting, I was walking through waist high grass along the outflow channel and the tried to get up right in front of me but I was quick. This was in the 90's and I was a teenager. I put her in the trunk of my car (1st vehicle was mama's hand-me-down Ford Taurus) and brought her to my buddies grandpa's house. He had ducks, geese, etc in a big farm yard. He clipped her so she couldn't fly off but died after a couple of weeks.

Our oldest whippet has been looking a bit "gimpy" when he gets up. 10+ years old now. Takes a few steps and stretches and no more gimping. We're figuring on arthritis. Had him at the vet a week or so back, younger dog got his shots and we had the vet take a look. Manipulated the heck out of him with no reaction, but then again we've had very stoic dogs when they get in a vet office.

Wife took a video this morning of him getting off the dog bed and coming toward her. Will show it to the vet Monday when we take him back. Going to try some Dasuquin and Ester-C for a few weeks and see if he gets a little better. The Ester-C worked well for a big ol lab mix I had.

In the interest of keeping with the forum heading of "waterfowl", I will attest to the fact the the whippets are wannabe duck and geese dogs. They try to get them on land but they keep flying away. And they can't swim so well, or choose not to, so they haven't attempted any water retrieves.

How big a honda outboard on that j boat?

MB
It's a 10 hp. I think the boat is 16'. It's enough to comfortably boat upstream in the river here and still light enough that the boat draws next to no water. I can get into some very small sloughs off the mainstem with this set up.

Valsdad,
Have you tried any of the chewable anti-inflammatory dog treats? I had very good luck for a while with something called Synovi-G4.