The dream of a hunting lifetime: goose hunting in the Chesapeake just off Wallops Island. We got out before sunup on the opening day. A couple of miles by boat from Chincoteague put us in shallow water with a fair number of permanent blinds in sight. Strangely, no one was in any of the blinds. The 4 of us took over a big blind and settled in to wait. Geese came in waves and in a few hours we had our limits, and a low tide. So, we slogged a mile or more pulling the boat. I stepped on something that felt unusual, reached down and put my hand in the handle of a very old hatch cover. The thing weighed a couple of hundred pounds and was completely waterlogged. I talked the guys into putting it on the bow of the boat (15' aluminum) and we added that to the pull. We got back to the dock at dusk, loaded the boat with the geese on the floor and tired but happy started for home. A quick stop for gas and we would be off. So there we were, in a gas station on Chincoteague, obviously hunters, when a few locals walked up an started the conversation: "You boys (our average age then was about 30) been huntin?". Yeah man! we got our limit too!! One of them looked in the boat and started to laugh. "Hey boys, look here!" The locals went to the boat and looked in. They all started to laugh and one of the said, to no one in particular "Them's Brant geese" and started laughing again. They walked away talking to each other and laughing. We wondered what the joke was, and why we were the only hunters on the bay that day. We found out and that tale continues in part II of "Cooking the Goose."
Image: sdakotabirds.com/species/photos/brant.jpg
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