Page 173 - South Mississippi Living - September, 2023

SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living | www.smliving.net September 2023 | 173
That didn’t happen, fortunately, but we did roust quite a few ducks and geese from their slumber. Unseen in the darkness, they rose off the water with a raucous condemnation of our predawn intrusion.
Except for a few trees around the house and across the pond, not a shred of cover higher than an inch grew along the shoreline. We erected a portable blind, placed decoys and waited for shooting hours to begin.
After bagging a few ducks at first light, nothing moved in the sky for hours. From the blind, we watched bass chasing their breakfast. I wished
I had brought a fishing rod. As the sun rose higher, we could watch golfers playing beyond
a wooded area across the pond some distance away.
Just about the time I wanted to call it a day, we heard it! From the direction of the golf course erupted a sonorous honking that grew louder and more intense with each second. Then, the largest flying birds I had ever seen, with the possible exception of wild turkeys and that’s debatable, took an interest in our decoys. Our guides blew seductive notes on their calls, welcoming them to our side of the pond.
Propelled by powerful, broad wings, these massive birds notched deceptively fast speeds. Crouching in the blind, we tightly gripped our shotguns as the first wave of feathered overcast approached ever closer and lower. Finally, they came into range.
The early season on resident Canada geese
in Mississippi opens on September 1 and runs through September 30 with a limit of five
per person per day. Not so long ago, the giant Canada goose subspecies almost went extinct. Many people thought they had already vanished. By the early 20th century, overhunting and habitat lost greatly reduced the population of
the largest subspecies of Canada goose across North America. Many wildlife managers believed that this magnificent bird became extinct by the 1950s. Fortunately, someone discovered a small flock in Minnesota.
From that remanent, wildlife managers across the nation began breeding and releasing the huge waterfowl. They came back strong in great numbers. Raised in pens, the original offspring and their progeny did not migrate. In the past few decades, populations of gigantic resident honkers exploded across the nation including parts of Mississippi.
The giant geese can make a mess of parks
and golf courses. They do serious damage to crop fields. The large, voracious birds eat all the grain, pulling plants up by their roots and leave their droppings everywhere. Therefore, many landowners welcome goose hunters on their properties.
Someone who spots a field full of geese might ask the landowner for permission to hunt. The landowner might enthusiastically grand the request.