Waiting for the next command.

Michigan is divided into two distinct peninsulas surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes. Spanning five miles, the magnificent Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw) bridge connects Lower Michigan to the Upper Peninsula (U.P.). Better than 90-percent of Michigan's population is located below the bridge in the Lower Peninsula. The sparsely populated U.P. is a sportsman's paradise containing world class waterfowling opportunities galore. Access to the action is awesome as Michigan holds more lands open to public hunting than any other state east of the mighty Mississippi, and most of it is located in the U.P. The U.P. also boasts a staggering amount of waterfowl habitat, so immense that a hunter could spend his or her entire lifetime hunting different spots without covering all the honey holes.

People that live in the U.P. are commonly referred to as "Yoopers" and those that live in Lower Michigan are often called "trolls" by Yoopers because they live below the bridge. My waterfowling buddy, Tom Gudwer, is a third generation Yooper who has been treading through the central U.P. for his entire life. The U.P. experiences some of the most brutal winters in the lower 48, with snowfalls in some areas averaging over a staggering 300 inches annually. As you can imagine, Yoopers, especially people like Tom that work and play outdoors year round, can endure just about any fowl weather conditions without batting an eye.

As we set up a spread of goose decoys, it was so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. The rain poured down with a vengeance making the oat stubble field a mixture of mud and puddles. The cloud deck was so low that we could literally reach up and touch it. It was cold, a wet kind of cold that penetrates to the bone.

Tom went about his business ignoring the weather. I'll admit that I was complaining a little as my Gore-Tex duds were being tested to the max. We strategically put out two dozen full bodied goose decoys, a couple dozen shells and a bunch more silhouettes to round out the spread. Two layout blinds were positioned on the down-wind end of the setup.

We had scouted the fields and set up right where thousands of geese had used the field the previous day. Thousands of feeding geese leave thousands of piles of goose dung, so let you imagination fill in the blanks on how that muddy field smelled. As the darkness stubbornly gave way to a slate gray sunrise, the sound of honking geese punched through the fog and rain.

Honkers moving down the Great Lakes' shoreline.

Despite our pleading calls and vigorous flagging, the first flight skirted our setup and landed about 200 yards away. The visibility was so poor that the geese just couldn't see us. Before Tom could fret too much another flock poured in and this one took notice of my call and banked our way. At over 50 birds strong, they looked like a squadron of B52s as they locked their wings and kicked out their feet on approach. Their excited honking was rudely interrupted as our blinds popped open and we drew beads on the shocked looking giant Canada geese. Our volley of shotgun music sent two of them tumbling to the soggy ground. Tom's dog Oscar shot out from his hide like a cruise missile and retrieved each bird. The dog thought the weather was perfect as he splashed though the field throwing rooster-tails in his wake.

Five minutes later and another flock buzzed our dekes. There squawking calls identified them as cackling geese, a smallish sized subspecies of Canada geese. Several flights of cacklers buzzed us along with flocks of lessers and giants. Limiting out on a mixed bag of honkers was as easy as pie. As we picked up the spread, geese were still pouring into the field. It dawned on me that I'd forgotten all about the cold and rain. It's funny how a few thousand geese will turn misery into pure joy. As it turned out the weather was perfect.

The U.P.'s Geese
The U.P. is graced with a robust local population of giant Canada geese. Faye McNew, the Waterfowl Specialist for the Michigan DNR states, "The U.P. has a resident giant Canada goose population that numbers around 30,000 during the spring. During years with good hatches, that number swells to over 100,000 by fall. Those resident goose numbers have been stable in recent years. The U.P. also gets some shipments of transplanted nuisance geese from southern Michigan. Those birds are captured during molting season and relocated from urban areas to the wilds of the U.P. where they bolster local populations without causing conflicts with humans."