September 28,2020 - A Good Day

The first real cold front of the year is a renaissance for all waterfowl hunters. The doldrums of summer are finally gone, and the expectations of the upcoming season are starting to get real.

Yesterday I got a report of the first specklebellies spotted outside of Eagle Lake. That is right on time. The prime-time specklebelly migration is Oct 12 - just around the corner.

I know I'm crazy, but I can't help but remember many sleepless nights when I was a young man at Texas A&M. I would lie there at night listening to flight after flight of geese honking as they flew over my apartment. Oh! What great memories! That sound of honking geese still makes me as excited as a kid on Christmas Eve.

I hope you have read that Third Coast Outfitters of Arkansas received an award this year for Outfitter of the Year. I am humbled and extremely honored to receive this award, but what does it really mean?

To me, it is a recognition that hunting is not just a business. It is a responsibility to nature, to society and to the next generation. We must pay things forward through conservation and working together with other groups to promote our great sport and teach our youngsters conservation and responsible, safe hunting practices.

I have been blessed with many opportunities of witnessing nature's wonder. I have shared fellowship with friends and family and have matched wits with the White Devils for many, many years. I have lots of stories to tell about hunting, but my fondest are the ones when I was with kids who shot their first goose.

Now those are good memories.

In my last post, I talked about the good news from the Arctic, which was about the positive, on-the-ground observations of a good goose hatch. Not two minutes had gone by from the time that blog hit the wires when I received comments from people contradicting what I had heard. I was sickened -- not only had I possibly recorded a falsehood, but if I was wrong, my hunting this year would suck -- and I had such high hopes!

But just in the past few days since I made that post, things have changed. I have received even more confirmed reports from Canada of large numbers of juvenile snow geese, including one from a man who lives in Canada and is a friend of a good friend of mine. He texted and said there were "some serious gray mixed into the herds -- 30-40%."

Life is good again.