OF "GEESE & MEN"

<P style="MARGIN: 0px">&nbsp;</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">Since the early season is almost upon us, I thought I'd share a passage on Goose hunting from the late, great Gene Hill.&nbsp; Some of you may have read it before, but i love it everytime I read this passage.&nbsp; It is the essence or insanity of our favorite activity that only goose hunters understand.</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">&nbsp;</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">FROM MOSTLY TAILFEATHERS:</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">&nbsp;</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">"I like offshore blinds, muddy grainfield pits and being hunkered down in a ditch.&nbsp; I like hip boots, a necklace of calls and the heft of a three-inch magnum shell.&nbsp; I like warm down parkas and the taste of bad weather.&nbsp; I like the kind of wind I can lean into and the slap of sleet on my earflaps.&nbsp; I like the promise of dawn and the memories that come with sunset.&nbsp; I like oversized decoys, boats I can pole and the excitement in the thumping of a Labrador's tail.&nbsp; I like the smell of salt water, gunpowder and wet dogs.&nbsp; I like the wonder and the waiting.&nbsp; I'm a goose hunter."</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">&nbsp;</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">...........</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">&nbsp;</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">"I don't know why I'd rather sit - semi-submerged in a flooded pit blind that I've walked two hours through mud to get to, carrying enough stores for a trans-Artic trek - and never fire a shot and talk all night about the wonderful day I had after geese, than take my limit of a lot of other stuff.&nbsp; It's just because I'm a goose hunter.&nbsp; But if you're a goose hunter too, you'll understand."</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">&nbsp;</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">GENE HILL</P>