Corn co-op honkers

After the last day of the goose season, the cold weather continued with very little access to food for the geese out in the fields. Because of this, they found themselves a "grand buffet" at the local co-op were they had dumped a big pile of corn in the fall. The geese would help themselves and were just stacked around the pile. Knowing this could be a great location to shoot alot of photographs, the next sunny morning I was out sitting in my Power Hunter along side the corn.

I figured since the geese were there for quite awhile, they would come within yards of me trying to get to the corn. But, these late season geese aren't stupid and they could sense/see something wrong by that pile and landed 75-100 yards out in front. Luckily, I had put on the 70-300mm lense and could reach out and get good photographs. I had high hopes of having too much zoom with this lense but soon realized I wasn't going to get any "in your face" shots.

With the sun and wind at my back, I had a good view with the camera to capture the photographs below. Most were taken between 200-300mm on the lense and in AV mode. The last four photographs, I experimented with exposure compensation and basically blew the highlights and overexposed the image making a ghost-like feel to the photographs.

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#13. (Not photoshopped, that is actually 4 geese trying to land on top of each other.)

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December Honker Hunting

The last few weeks of the 2009/2010 goose season required some hard work and dedication. With a record amount of snow fall in December followed by cold conditions, the geese started to use only a few places throughout the day. Luckily, I was able to hunt these spots and get a few good photographs.

Unfortunately, most of December and January the sun didn't shine so the lighting wasn't the best for taking photographs. Shots taken with the Nikon D90 & Nikon 70-300mm lense on AV mode.

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Raccoon River Labs in the late season

Raccoon River Lab's didn't get to do much duck retrieving this season but the goose season made up for that with Taz getting to haul back quite a few big late season honkers in the snow and ice.

Cameron got to experience a neat little hunting spot on a small pothole but unfortunately only got to retrieve one nice greenhead that morning. The majority of the time, Cameron stayed behind the log and looked to the skies hoping to see ducks. Shots taken with the D90 and Sigma 50-150 mm in AV mode.

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Taz was the main "work horse" for the late season and retrieved geese and ducks in cold icy conditions along with snow covered corn fields. Sure is nice not to have to get out of the Ground Force and Power Hunters to retrieve downed geese out in the field when you are trying to stay out of the cold wind.

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The newest member to the Raccoon River Labs kennel is Indy! This young pup has the drive to get those greenheads already and sure has a nose to find them in the grass. It will be fun to see this pup develop into another fine retriever from RRL.

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2009 Waterfowl Season (Mid Season)

The start of the regular 09/10 waterfowl season in October was a great one. After donating a youth hunt to raise money for the Yale Community Club, the youngster got to hunt Canada geese on opening morning. The field was secured and the geese gave us a great show that morning. The sky conditions sure weren't good for photographs but I tried to capture a few birds that landed at our blinds. Shots taken with the Nikon D90 & Sigma 50-150mm in AV mode.

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Once into November, the mild weather conditions greatly affected the duck and goose activity in the area. The duck hunting turned very poor but the geese kept things interesting if they came out in the afternoon before sunset. Even if the geese didn't, I got to witness some great sunsets. Shots taken with the Nikon D90 & Sigma 50-150 in AV mode.

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With the lack of weather to push down the mallards, the field hunting wasn't the fast pace hunting it can be under the right conditions. However, one particular hunt was an excellent one with the sun shining right on the incoming groups of ducks. Of course, I should of had the camera for the first groups that came in very close compared to these photographs that were taken at ducks that were much further away. Shots taken with the Nikon D90 & Sigma 50-150 in AV mode.

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