Five geese cleared the distant treetops and were winging straight at us. The birds were a mile away, but there was no doubt they were headed to our decoys. To be on the safe side, I raised my flag and shook it violently to catch their attention.

As the birds approached, I let out a few clucks and moans with my short-reed goose call.

My sounds sealed the deal. The birds locked their wings and coasted toward the landing zone we had created within our decoys. When the geese were 20 yards out and starting to drop their landing gear, my buddy and I sat up in our layout blinds and each carved a bird from the flock to close out our limit.

As we picked up decoys, I thought about the enjoyment of hunting early-season birds coming out of the boreal forest areas of central and northern Canada, and how lucky I am to have stumbled onto such superb hunting action. It is a dependable pattern year after year.

While my hunt took place in northeastern Saskatchewan, it could have happened almost anywhere from British Columbia to Quebec. Boreal forest spans across Canada. While many people see the forest as just trees, it is much more. In fact, amongst the trees lie a multitude of rivers, wetlands and lakes that provide prime breeding, molting and staging areas for a number of waterfowl species.

North for Moose
For years, I've hunted waterfowl in the central regions of Canada around major staging areas. When doing so, I'd start hunting local birds that nested in the areas and wait for the pushes of migrating birds to move in. At times, I pondered when the birds would come.

I'd also wonder where they were prior to reaching those areas. I always came to the conclusion, "on the tundra."

It never really crossed my mind to head north just below the treeline to look for birds.

Instead, I always thought of heading north to hunt moose and elk. Thankfully, on a big-game hunt, I actually stumbled onto this early-season waterfowling opportunity. If my memory serves me right, it was the fall of 1986. It was early September. I had a special draw moose licence. While I was sneaking around small lakes, marshes and wetlands in search of moose, I was amazed at the number of waterfowl I was seeing scattered within the forest. I quickly realized setting up a hunt within the forest would be difficult because the birds were spread out in small numbers on a vast number of wetlands.

As much as I tried and wanted to, I couldn't really think of a way to hunt the ducks and geese I was seeing in the forest. However, the lights really went on later in the week after I killed a moose. I was on my way back to the forest after dropping off my moose at a local locker plant. As I drove during the final hour of daylight, I saw several small flocks of birds in the skies above the nearby agricultural fields. My buddies would be hunting until dark, so I had time to spare and followed a couple of flights of birds.

To my delight, I found a barley field full of feeding ducks and geese. On my way to the forest, I saw three more fields of birds. I concluded the birds spread out within the trees were flying out to surrounding farmland areas to feed. When they did, they congregated in large enough numbers to hunt.