Reminiscing on the heydays of goose hunting

All I could think of over the weekend was boy, I wish I was in a good goose pit right now. I well remember the glory days of goose hunting on Snow Farm near Smyrna when we often killed our four-bird limit on bluebird days and really tore them up in the wind, snow and rain.

In a book I read many years ago, the author recalled finding these words carved in the forward bulkhead of a duck hunter’s skiff, “First it rained, then it blew, then it frez and then it snew.” That pretty much describes the perfect duck- or goose-hunting day.

I always brought my two boys along on Thanksgiving morning even before they were old enough to hunt. On one very cold and snowy Turkey Day, my oldest boy Ric became very cold, but no one wanted to leave because the shooting was so good. Finally, after what must have seemed like an eternity to Ric, we had our four-bird limit and packed up to leave. Ric was so anxious to get inside my Scout he ran ahead and when we caught up to him he was still standing out in the snow. I asked why he wasn’t inside and he replied his hands were too cold to open the door.

On another snowy morning, I took my friend Pete Barret on a hunt on Snow Farm. It had snowed overnight and by daybreak the skies had cleared with the wind howling out of the northwest.

We managed to kill some geese before we had to leave and go to work. Pete wanted to borrow two of our silhouette decoys, so while he was packing up his gear I pulled up a feeder and a watcher. When they came out of the ground, the decoys brought along large amounts of corn. I kicked away the snow in a few other locations, and each time I uncovered more corn. This is not a good thing, especially on a farm that borders Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge.

We got out of there fast, and once Pete was on his way back to New Jersey I started looking for Jimmy Snow. I found him at the corn dryer and explained what happened. He had me leave my gun there and go back to our pit to remove our decoys. Jimmy told me to put the decoys around his son Bruce’s pit since Bruce was so busy guiding that he never had a chance to hunt on his own. My crew hunted there until I moved to Virginia Beach in 1989.

We never figured out who salted the pit, but Jimmy had tossed a very nasty fellow off the farm a week or two before and suspicion fell on him. If it hadn’t snowed that night, the corn would have been visible to even the most casual observer, and Pete and I would have had a real tough time convincing a federal game warden we didn’t put it there.

While snow, wind and rain were always good for shooting, fog was the best. The birds would have to fly low and you didn’t have to hunker down in the pit. We just stood up with guns at the ready for when the geese came into view. The birds would disappear as fast as they appeared, so what we had was fantastic pass shooting.

At times you could hear the birds on the ground in the decoys, but you couldn’t see them. Then when they figured out those plywood silhouettes were not their long-lost cousins from Canada they would take off all at once, giving us some really fast shooting.

Those days are long gone, and while Canada goose hunting is getting better, I doubt it will ever reach the level we had in the 1970s and '80s. Snow geese keep increasing, but even with the relaxed regulations they are still difficult to lure into the decoys. I am just glad I was here during the heyday and able to experience waterfowl hunting at its best.

Water quality

On Monday I received a very nice email from Dr. William J. Ullman from the University of Delaware School of Marine Science and Policy in Lewes. Dr. Ullman was kind enough to say he appreciated my efforts to point out that while there may be low dissolved oxygen (diel cycling hypoxia) in the Inland Bays, that does not always lead to fish mortality.

He also asked me to include the names of the researchers who did the extensive study in Pepper Creek that discovered this fact. Dr. Robin Tyler, Dr. Damian Brady and Dr. Timothy Targett did the research during 2009 and 2010. I do apologize for this omission.


Eric Burnley is a Delaware native who has fished and hunted the state from an early age.  Since 1978 he has written countless articles about hunting and fishing in Delaware and elsewhere along the Atlantic Coast. Eric can be reached at Eburnle@aol.com.