Christmas Goose....the story

The family wanted a Christmas goose and had put in their request in October, so I felt obligated to oblige. Not being a "professional" goose hunter and only having access to flooded green timber, I felt at a disadvantage. Not backing up from a challenge, I set forth on a quest to kill "The Christmas Goose". I started back at the first of November trying to locate a flock and managed to do so in a matter of a few weeks. I asked permission to hunt them when season opened, and the owners said they did not allow anyone to hunt the sewer ponds, so I was crestfallen and thought my quest for "The Christmas Goose" was to go for naught. After a week of depression, I again set out on my quest. I noticed that the flock of geese would often (depending on the weather) fly across the flooded green timber that I had permission to hunt. A couple more weeks of scouting this flock of geese, I had them patterned to the point I knew what the wind, temperature, clouds, moon phase, and water level needed to be for them to fly across my hunting area. Today, I knew the conditions would be right. I had my cutdown keyhole goose flute that had been tuned by the best in the business, I had my fast boat that I knew no one could beat to the hole, I had my trusty 10 gauge loaded with 3 1/2 inch T's and most of all I had my confidence that this would be the day to bag "The Christmas Goose". At approximatley 7 am I heard the geese lift off the sewer pond and with confidence I had gained from scouting, I immediatley began to call with the cutdown, keyhole goose flute. I could hear them getting closer and closer and the geese began their glide into the 4 Canada decoys I had set up in a horseshoe pattern, like I had read in the book "Goose Hunting for Dummies". When they started to get close I noticed a neck band on the first goose and so had him pegged for the first shot. After a few well timed and great sounding moans and clucks, the geese passed over at about 90 yards and I chose to take the shot. My first broke a wing on the neck banded goose and the third broke a wing on a second goose. I suspect the second bullet was a blank since it hit nothing. After expending the rest of the box of shells chasing the 2 cripples through the timber, I finally had both geese in the boat. As it turns out the neck band was nothing more that a piece of toilet paper no doubt picket up from the sewer pond they were roosting on, but who cares. I had my trophies. Not only 1 "Christmas Goose", but 2 "Christmas Geese".

Merry Christmas everyone.