California - Josh Campbell
Josh (on the left) and his hunting partner recently made their annual freelance trip to Canada in pursuit of geese. Prior to the trip, Josh commented that he felt like he was about due for some bands from Canada. Canada did not disappoint.
During their successful trip on a particular hunt, two specklebelly geese locked up, and with feet down Josh and his friend folded both geese. And to their surprise both were banded.
Two Specks, Two Bands, Two Times
What makes this story even more interesting is that these same two waterfowlers killed two banded specks a few years earlier in California. Two specks, and again two bands.
Now they have done it twice. Go figure.
Read more about Josh's story below.
Once in a Lifetime
The unusual sequence of events began to unfold on January 23, 2005 on the way home from a day of jump shooting.
There are several canals close to my home that can make for a decent hunt if you hit them right. My buddy Joe and I had a pretty successful day so far and we were close to filling out our limits, but we had one more stop to make.
There was a pond on the outskirts of town that usually held some ducks. As we approached one edge of the pond in my truck, I spotted two large birds sitting on the bank at the other end of the impoundment. I quickly stopped my rig, grabbed my binoculars, and glassed the pond. To my surprise, they were two loafing specklebelly geese.
We quickly formulated a plan, quietly exited my truck, grabbed our guns, and began cautiously working around the pond bank towards the two geese. About half way down the pond, we carefully took a peek over the bank to see if the two geese were still in the same position. They weren’t.
As we came over the bank, the two geese had already moved and were now dead center in front of us. And we had just been made!
As they got off the water, climbing quickly, Joe and I each took the bird on our respective sides. We fired one shot apiece, both geese folded, and down they came into the pond, dead on the water. The wind was blowing away from us, so I circled back around the pond towards an area I believed the geese were drifting towards.
For some background, I have hunted various geese in the United States and Canada, and have shot my share of specks along the way, so I was not anticipating what was about to happen next.
As I traversed the edge of the pond, I arrived at Joe’s goose first. I picked it up. Bingo, it was banded! And it was not only a banded goose, but it was a banded speck which I knew was not very common. “Lucky Joe,” I thought.
My goose was floating just a short distance from Joe’s bird, and as I reached down to pick up my goose I recognized the unmistakable silver flash. It was banded too! Unbelievable! Two shots and two banded specks!
I hollered across the pond to Joe that we had just shot two banded specks and Joe yelled back in disbelief, “You’re such a liar!” But who could blame him? There I was holding two specks with two bands in my hands and I could hardly believe it myself. What could be the odds?
As I approached Joe, I held up the two banded geese. We looked at them, enjoyed the moment, and realized we had just experienced a once in a lifetime event, an event that we would never do again. Or so we thought.
Lightning Strikes Twice
Every year Joe and I make our annual freelance hunting trip to Canada in search of geese. It was during this particular trip on September 28, 2008, over three years later from the first set of bands, that something special was about to happen.
While scouting the afternoon before for the next morning’s hunt, I located a pea field that was littered with geese. I knew the odds were in our favor for a good hunt the following day.
The next morning we set up in plenty of time before the geese started to arrive at our field to feed. The morning hunt was solid with a steady flight, but we were still a few birds shy of our limits, so we opted to leave our layout blinds and spread out, and try to finish out in the afternoon.
After a short drive to town to get a bite to eat, we took a much needed nap before heading back out to our field for an afternoon hunt. We settled back into our layout blinds at about three in the afternoon, and patiently waited for the birds to return for their evening feeding.
The first birds to reach our field were two specks. They approached downwind from our decoys at about fifty yards up, legs already down. I knew by the way they had their legs down, these two geese had already signed their death certificates. They made the corner, and continued to drop right down perfectly into our decoys when Joe sat up and yelled, “Shoot’em!” Two shots rang out.
We dropped both specks and Joe’s dog was quickly on her way to retrieve our first goose, Joe’s. After a swift retrieve, Joe received his goose from his dog, quickly dropped it into the bottom of his layout blind, and sent his dog after my goose.
When Joe’s dog handed over my goose to him, Joe tossed it to my buddy Tim that had his blind set up between Joe and I. Tim looked over my goose, paused for a few seconds, and then stated with a smile, “I think I will keep this one. It’s banded.”
Hearing that my bird was banded, Joe then reached down to the bottom of his blind to inspect his speck. Low and behold his goose was banded too.
We were both very surprised and excited to have now done the almost unthinkable. Killed two specks with two shots, and retrieved two bands. And now we had done it twice.
While hunting in the seasons to come, I think we will always be wondering in the back of our minds, if we will ever get to see if the third times a charm.
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