Goose Hunting in High Winds

       On friday, I took the day off from school to hunt with a friend who was already on winter break because he goes to private school. We went to a farm pond where we have had great success between 9:30 and 10:30, the geese feed on cornfields all morning and then fly to the ponds to rest and snack on grass untill they head back to the cornfields in the evening. We set up 8 decoys with flocked heads at 20 yards on a point of land jutting out into the pond. We sat around and fished from our hiding spot in the reeds when all of a sudden I looked up to see 5 geese, cupped wings and dropping fast into the decoys. Right when they were about to land I said "cut 'em", we unloaded our guns, feathers were flying...and one bird hit the water... Terrible shooting...
      We figured the birds caught us off guard and we would clean up with the next group. About an hour later, we weren't paying attention when a flock of 10 birds silently came over the trees and dropped in, but we were more prepared this time. We unloaded our guns, and again, one bird fell, I will be honest, I missed with both barrels of my citori, well  I messed up one bird pretty badly, but the law says I have to shoot steel, so cripples are common, but that bird managed to get his wings under him and head out. We also found a second bird from the first group that died as well, stiff, but warm, so it was definitely from the first group. My conclusion is that steel shot does funny stuff in high winds, and the geese look like they are hovering in front of the decoys when they really are not, so we were probably shooting behind the birds. Oh well, we still knocked down 3, and that sure as heck beats a day at school! 
    We were shooting 3" Winchester 1550fps BB steel loads with improved cylinder chokes, along with a couple experimental 1700fps Hypersonic Steel BBs given to me by my Uncle  for a "test drive" so to speak. I was using a Browning Citori 12ga and Jackson was shooting a Benelli Nova 12ga pump (in the picture). Thanks for reading!

My friend Jackson with our 3 birds for the day, note how little the two birds on the righ are, the farthest one to the left being about the size of a mallard!